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UNIVTRSITY  OF 
CITLIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


CONSCIENCE   & 
FANATICISM 


CONSCIENCE    & 
FANATICISM 

AN   ESSAY   ON   MORAL  VALUES 


BY 

r 


GEORGE  PITT-RIVERS 


"Equant  memento  aervare  vientem'^ 


NEW    YORK 

ROBERT  M.  MC  BRIDE  &  COMPANY 

1919 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


PREFACE 

In  presenting  this  little  volume  to  the  public  I 
am  fully  conscious  of  my  presumption  in  intro- 
ducing my  personal  views  in  a  region  where 
many  hundreds  of  better  qualified  writers  have 
devoted  their  best  efforts.  Since,  however,  no 
apology  can  justify  a  profitless  task,  if  such  it  be, 
or  add  to  its  utility,  if  indeed  it  possesses  any,  I 
will  not  attempt  to  make  one. 

If  I  have  contributed  in  ever  so  slight  a  degree 
towards  an  understanding  of  the  mental  state  or 
attitude  we  call  fanaticism,  for  the  purpose  of 
guarding  against  the  catastrophes  it  begets,  I 
shall  have  achieved  my  purpose.  It  is  unfortu- 
nately inevitable  that  a  discussion  which  involves 
current  opinions  and  beliefs  must  necessarily 
encounter  strong  prejudices  and  opposition,  but 
it  is  less  on  this  account  that  this  little  work  is 
likely  to  fail  than  for  the  reason  to  which  Hume 
attributed  the  failure  which  attended  the  publica- 
tion of  his  "  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,"  which 
he  described  as  his  guilt  "  of  a  very  usual  indis- 
cretion, in  going  to  the  press  too  early."  A 
circumstance  which  prevented  that  "  unfortunate 
literary  attempt  from  reaching  such  distinction 
as  even  to  excite  a  murmur  among  the  zealots."  * 

*  Hume's  "  Autobiography." 


vi  PREFACE 

Needless  to  say,  I  have  relied  for  my  interpreta- 
tion of  human  notions  and  ideas,  and  the  conduct 
which  results  from  them,  very  largely  upon  the 
works  of  past  and  contemporary  writers  ;  and 
my  indebtedness  to  those  with  whom  I  differ  no 
less  than  those  with  whom  I  agree  is  but  very 
inadequately  acknowledged  in  my  references  to 
the  works  of  some  of  them. 

The  earlier  portions  of  the  essay  are  devoted 
chiefly  to  an  examination  of  moral  ideas,  the 
latter  portions  more  exclusively  to  the  facts  of 
nature  and  of  mind  from  which  they  derive  their 
meaning.  Throughout  I  have  attempted  to  keep 
the  argument  as  free  as  possible  from  the  thin 
air  of  philosophical  and  scholastic  dialectic,  and 
as  far  as  possible  in  terms  of  common  usage 
and  thought.  With  this  end  in  view,  and  for 
the  sake  of  brevity,  the  authors  to  whose  works 
I  have  referred  most  frequently  have  been 
selected  either  because  they  are  better  known 
or  because  their  opinions  are  more  widely  held 
than  in  the  case  of  others.  But  in  any  case  no 
claim  to  exhaustive  or  even  adequate  treatment 
can  be  made  for  so  slight  a  review  of  so  vast  a 
subject. 

The  first  problem  which  I  have  attempted  to 
deal  with  is  one  which  confronts  all  moralists. 
It  consists  in  the  difficulty  of  deriving  ethical 
notions  from  notions  which  are  not  ethical,  or  of 
deducing  the  moral  law  from  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence and  of  nature.  The  attempt  to  escape  from 
this  difficulty  often  takes  the  form  of  adopting 


PREFACE  vii 

a  theory  by  which  the  whole  world  is  divided 
into  two  unrelated  worlds,  a  world  of  values  and 
a  physical  world  of  mechanical  sequences.  In 
order  to  bring  these  two  independent  and  self- 
consistent  systems  within  the  same  reality  and  to 
weld  them  together,  God  is  postulated.  God  is 
necessary,  it  is  argued,  to  prove  the  objectivity 
of  morality.  That  is  to  say,  that  since  moral 
values  are  eternally  valid,  independently  of 
man's  capacity  to  be  conscious  of  them,  they  can 
only  have  existence  in  the  one  eternal  mind.* 

The  purpose  of  this  essay  is  to  offer  a  different 
solution.  As  this  question  of  the  status  of  moral 
values  is  of  great  importance  to  the  moral 
argument,  a  preliminary  examination  of  the 
ground  may  be  helpful. 

The  predication  of  value  to  an  object  which 
elicits  moral  approbation  is  not,  as  most  Theistic 
writers  stubbornly  maintain,  an  implicit  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  objectivity  of  the  goodness 
predicated,  it  is  merely  the  act  of  appreciating 
the  subject  or  valuer's  attitude  in  relation  to  the 
object  (the  relationship  may  be  purely  hypo- 
thetical), but  it  may,  and  usually  does,  invite  a 
similar  attitude  on  the  part  of  any  number  of 
subjects. t     The  relation  of  subject  to  object — 

*  This  is  the  position  of  the  IdeaUstic  schools  and  is  adopted  in 
Professor  Sorley's  recently  published  GiSord  Lectures,  "  Moral  Values 
and  the  Idea  of  God." 

f  This  relationship  may  be  expressed  in  psychological  terms.  Dr. 
McDougall  expresses  it  thus :  "  Objects  have  value  for  us  in  propor- 
tion as  they  excite  our  conative  tendencies  ;  our  consciousness  of  their 
value,  positive  or  negative,  is  our  consciousness  of  the  strength  of  the 
conation  they  awake  in  us." — "  Body  and  Mind,"  p.  329. 


viii  PREFACE 

this  also  applies  to  all  relations — may  belong  to 
objective  reality,  but  not  the  moral  worth  we 
ascribe  to  the  object  as  a  result  of  that  relation- 
ship. This  distinction  is  important  and  involves, 
necessarily,  a  discrimination  (not  always  made) 
between  the  treatment  of  knowledge  and  of 
value.  Hume,  by  denying  the  objective  charac- 
ter of  the  relations  and  connexions  of  nature 
equally  with  moral  judgment,  in  his  interpreta- 
tion of  individual  experience,  treated  moral  judg- 
ment and  knowledge  of  natural  science  in  an 
identical  manner.  In  the  following  discussion 
truth,  to  which  I  have  denied  relativity,  is 
accorded  a  position  altogether  distinct  from  value. 
Appreciation  of  truth  and  interest  in  knowing  is 
treated  as  a  value,  but  not  truth  itself  to  which 
subjectivity  is  denied.  The  method  I  have 
adopted  of  treating  this  fundamental  point  may 
perhaps  be  made  clearer  by  a  simple  illustration. 
Let  us  take  any  particular  moral  judgment,  for 
example,  "  A  [a  conscious  individual]  is  good." 
The  assertion  implies  that  A  is  the  habitual 
doer  of  desirable  actions,  or  is  benevolently  dis- 
posed towards  the  valuer.  Society  at  large,  or 
God,  according  to  the  valuer's  idea  of  goodness. 
In  any  case  A's  conduct  or  his  attitude  must 
have  evoked  approbation  by  reason  of  its  effect 
(emotional  or  material)  upon  the  valuer  or  those 
with  whom  he  is  in  sympathy.  The  valuer 
might  attempt  to  refute  this  definition  by  main- 
taining that  A's  habitual  conduct  does  him  the 
greatest  injury,  but  that  his  predication  of  good 


PREFACE  ix 

in  respect  of  A  is  the  assertion  of  an  objective 
fact.  In  spite  of  such  an  objection,  I  would 
reply  that  the  moral  judgment  may  indeed  be 
intended  to  imply  certain  definite  objective 
qualities  or  properties  because  the  valuer  considers 
these  desirable,  and  chooses  arbitrarily  to  define 
"  good  "  as  containing  those  definite  properties, 
or  because  in  the  community  to  which  he  addresses 
himself  they  are  customarily  so  defined.  The 
veracity,  however,  of  the  moral  judgment,  con- 
sidered as  a  statement  of  fact,  can  only  be 
tested  after  an  agreement  has  been  reached  as  to 
the  content  of  the  symbol  "  good."  It  has  then 
been  given  a  meaning  which  alone  it  does  not 
possess.  The  validity  of  moral  judgment,  when 
it  is  not  merely  the  expression  of  individual 
attitude,  will  therefore  always  depend  upon  the 
criterion  of  conduct  previously  adopted.  In  this 
way  it  is  held  that  a  moral  judgment  differs  from 
a  statement  of  fact,  which  is  valid  irrespective  of 
the  existence  of  any  mind  capable  of  apprehend- 
ing that  fact. 

In  the  last  two  chapters,  where  an  examination 
of  psychological  processes  has  been  necessary,  I 
have  experienced  no  slight  difficulty  in  finding 
appropriate  terms  by  which  to  distinguish  certain 
conceptions  which  are  in  some  respects  new.  An 
inapt  terminology  and  the  misuse  of  terms  is  so 
grave  a  fault,  and  so  habitually  results  in  errors, 
obscurity,  and  confusion,  that  it  may  not  be 
superfluous  to  call  attention  to  the  terms  that  are 
more   liable  to   misinterpretation  and  in   many 


X  PREFACE 

ways  least  satisfactory.  For  this  purpose  it  will 
be  necessary  to  give  the  briefest  possible  account 
of  the  use  to  which  they  are  put,  while  their  more 
precise  definition  will  be  left  to  the  chapters  in 
which  they  occur. 

The  psychic  life  and  the  mental  activity  of 
human  beings  is  conditioned  by  three  factors. 
The  first,  heredity,  denotes  the  accumulation  of 
experiences  and  consequent  structural  modifica- 
tions acquired  by  the  race  during  the  process  of 
its  adjustment  to  its  environment ;  the  mani- 
festation of  the  result  of  this  experience  in 
behaviour  is  called  instinct.  The  second  is  the 
result  of  the  habits  and  acquirements  of  the 
individual  from  the  moment  of  conception  to 
the  end  of  his  existence  :  this,  together  with 
the  first,  produces  what  we  call  character.  The 
third,  those  external  influences  operating  upon 
the  individual,  we  refer  to  as  environment. 

If  we  would  reflect  upon  the  mental  life  of 
humanity  we  must  consider  the  individual  mind 
in  relation  to  the  world  of  mankind.  In  con- 
sidering the  individual  mind  I  have  adopted  the 
terms  objective  mind  and  subjective  mind  to  denote 
two  aspects  of  mind.  The  words  "  objective  " 
and  "  subjective  "  in  conjunction  with  mind  are 
used  in  a  special  sense  which  has  to  be  defined. 
The  world  of  men  has  been  considered  as  the 
psychic  environment  of  the  individual  mind,  and 
I  have  introduced  a  term  to  denote  the  power  of 
aggregations  of  human  thoughts  and  impulses. 
It  has  been  viewed  as  an  aspect  of  the  universal 


PREFACE  xi 

process  underlying  the  conative  disposition  and 
will-to-power  of  all  living  beings,  and  on  account 
of  the  mode  of  its  operation  it  has  been  termed 
"  cosmic  suggestion."  The  term  is  not  intended 
to  imply  that  the  psychic  forces  of  the  human 
mind  can  be  "  given  off "  and  have  separate 
existence,  like  the  "  odylic  fluid  "  of  the  early 
Mesmerists.  The  power  is  that  of  collective 
minds ;  suggestion  an  effect  of  its  activity,  not 
a  derived  essence.  It  must  be  understood  that 
these  three  terms  are  provisional,  and  will  be 
discarded  if,  in  the  course  of  time,  better  ones 
suggest  themselves. 

Finally,  I  would  crave  the  indulgence  of  my 
readers  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  philosophy 
of  egoism.  There  is  a  view  of  egoism — ^the 
principle  of  self-interest — as  distinguished  from 
altruism,  which  is  seen  in  opposition  to  asceticism 
and  mysticism,  a  view  which  prompted  Lecky 
when  he  wrote :  "  Taking  human  nature  with  all 
its  defects,  the  influence  of  an  enlightened  self- 
interest  first  of  all  upon  the  actions  and  after- 
wards upon  the  character  of  mankind,  is  shown 
to  be  sufficient  to  construct  the  whole  edifice  of 
civilization ;  and  if  that  principle  were  with- 
drawn, all  would  crumble  in  the  dust.  .  .  .  When, 
therefore,  the  ascetic,  proclaiming  the  utter  de- 
pravity of  mankind,  seeks  to  extirpate  his  most 
natural  passions,  to  crush  the  expansion  of  his 
faculties,  to  destroy  the  versatility  of  his  tastes, 
and  to  arrest  the  flow  and  impulse  of  his  nature, 
he  is  striking  at  the  very  force  and  energy  of 


xii  PREFACE 

civilization."  How  infinitely  preferable  is  the 
spirit  of  enlightened  egoism  to  the  blind  altruism 
of  the  fanatic  !  The  egoism  that  enhances  rather 
than  dims  the  love  of  others.  It  is  only  through 
the  realization  of  community  of  interests  and 
aims  that  like  thought  will  result  in  like  conduct. 
It  is  a  recognition  of  this  principle  of  systematic 
integration  of  interests  and  their  concomitant 
obligations,  starting  from  egoism,  in  the  sense  of 
a  realization  of  the  relation  of  self  to  environment, 
and  then  through  successive  stages  of  widening 
appreciation  of  the  full  contents  of  environ- 
ment to  the  identification  of  the  self  with 
the  comnmnity,  which  alone  leads  to  State  or 
National  morality,  and  will  lead,  ultimately 
it  may  be  hoped,  to  the  morality  of  a  com- 
munity of  all  nations — ^that  is,  a  world  morality. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  say  that  the  end 
and  aim  of  a  true  ethical  system  is  to  find  the 
interests  of  mankind  in  the  interests  of  the 
individual. 

And  now,  as  we  stand  on  the  threshold  of  a 
new  era — a  new  world  in  search  of  its  soul — 
what  better  precept  can  we  have  than  the  simple 
words  of  the  great  thinker  who,  three  hundred 
years  ago,  also  stood  on  the  threshold  of  a  new 
world  of  thought  ? 

"  II  suffit  de  bien  juger  pour  bien  faire,  et 
de  juger  le  mieux  qu'on  puisse,  pour  faire 
aussi  tout  son  mieux,  c'est-a-dire,  pour  acqu^rir 
toutes   les  vertus,   et   ensemble  tous   les  autres 


PREFACE  adii 

biens,  qu'on  puisse  acquerir ;  et  lorsqu'on  est 
certain  que  cela  est,  on  ne  saurait  manquer 
d'etre  content." — ^Descartes,  "Discours  de  la 
Methode." 

G.  P.  R. 

HiNTON  St.  Maby,  Dorset 
January  1,  1919 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  FAOB 

I.  INTRODUCTION  1 

The  importance  ascribed  to  the  word  "  conscience  " 
by  public  opinion  :  by  the  State  :  by  the  Church  : 
need  for  examination  of  its  credentials 

II.  THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS  7 

Theism  and  Determinism  :  the  Intuitive  schools  : 
the  Rationalistic  schools  :  recognition  of  Glood  : 
the  facts  stated  :  the  Utilitarian  standard  demanded 

III.  THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION  20 

The  argument  against  Utilitarianism  :  Mill's  defence 
of  Utilitarianism  :  a  variation  of  Mill's  position  : 
the  principle  of  proximity  :  the  meaning  of  Truth  : 
duty  :  an  illustration  from  history  :  Robert  E.  Lee 

IV.  RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  82 

Probing  the  essentials  :  the  need  for  a  moral  code  : 
its  artificial  character  :  the  deeper  morality  : 
Morality  and  Religion  :  religious  and  political 
fanaticism  :  moral  values  and  psychic  force  : 
Monism  and  Duality  :  a  reconciliation  of  systems  : 
conservation  of  the  soul  :  education  and  the  forma- 
tion of  opinion. 

V.  THE    LAWS    OF    SUGGESTION   AND 

"SUBJECTIVE  MIND"  44 

The  power  of  ideas  :  origin  of  the  World  War  : 
psychodynamics  and  the  law  of  suggestion  :  Elaeckel 
on  emotion  :  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  on  the  progress  of 
an  agitator  :  consciousness  :  Hudson's  hypothesis  : 
the  two  aspects  of  mind  :  Theology  on  the  origin 
of  Good  and  Evil  :  self-knowledge  :  Socrates  and 
Joan  of  Arc  :  the  phenomena  of  madness  :  men  of 
genius  :    volution     and     organic     memory  :  tele- 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  FAOB 

pathy  :  the  power  of  suggeston  :  psychothera- 
peutics :  faith-healers  :  Christian  Science  :  memory  : 
Coleridge's  case  :  William  James  :  Bernard  Shaw 
on  Art. 

VI.  VALUER  AND  VALUATION  78 

Factors  determining  valuation  and  arrangement  of 
the  discussion. 

(1)  INSTINCT  AND  HEREDITY  78 

Prof.  Ward  on  heredity  :  Haeckel  on  instincts  : 
McDougall  on  instincts  :  imitation  and  morality  : 
demagogues  and  ^anatics  :  geniuses  and  politicians  : 
maternal  impressions  :  heredity  versus  environ- 
ment :  conscience  as  an  emotional  and  instinctive 
organ,  and  conscience  as  a  thinking  and  intellectual 
organ  :  the  force  of  cosmic  suggestion  on  moraUty  : 
remorse. 

(2)  THE  FACTOR  OF  EMOTION  86 

Emotion  defined  :  its  manifestations  :  its  control  : 
Ward  on  emotion  :  James  on  emotion  :  the  aesthetic 
emotions  :  Racine  and  the  element  of  mystery  in 
Art  :  William  Hazlitt  on  the  worship  of  names  : 
emotional  sensibility  :  aesthetic  appreciation. 

(8)  JUDGMENT  OF  ENDS  06 

The  intellectual  and  critical  processes  :  realization 
of  ends  :  recognition  of  Glood  :  the  norm  of  valuation. 

(4)  COSMIC  SUGGESTION  99 

Public  opinion  :  emotional  suggestions  :  individual 
suggestibility  :  gregarious  attraction  :  ecstatic 
oratory  :  Rasputin  :  Mark  Antony  :  propaganda  : 
the  Press  :  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc's  views  :  the  influence 
o^  literature  :  the  worship  of  symbols  :  Bergson's 
definition  of  metaphysics  :  the  necessary  task  of 
religion  :  progress  or  decline  :  the  highest  form  of 
morahty. 


CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 


INTRODUCTION 

In  all  ages  conscience  has  been  the  theme  of 
priest,  politician,  philanthropist  and  obstruc- 
tionist. So  often  used  and  so  seldom  analysed, 
beyond  a  bare  assertion  of  its  function,  it  is 
curious  to  reflect  on  the  strange  medley  of  uses 
to  which  this  word  is  put. 

Conscience  is  at  once  the  standard  and  the 
refuge  of  orthodox  and  fanatic,  patriot  and 
anarchist — ^according  as  they  are  described  by 
admirer  or  detractor — ^but,  let  us  believe  with 
Lecky,*  least  often  of  the  genuine  hypocrite. 

Never  was  a  nation  so  beset  with  "  con- 
scientious "  men  and  women  as  England  is  to- 
day ;  some  helping,  some  hindering,  some  having 
little  effect  on  the  national  welfare.  Some  flaunt 
the  badge  obtrusively,  they  label  themselves 
"  conscientious  objectors  to  military  service," 
"  conscientious  objectors  to  vaccination,"  "  con- 
scientious   teetotallers " ;     in    some    cases   anti- 

*  "  Hypocrites,  who  from  interested  motives  profess  opinions 
which  they  do  not  really  believe,  are  probably  rarer  than  is  usually 
supposed." — "  Rise  and  Influence  of  Rationalism  in  Europe." 

1  A 


2  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

vivisectionists,*  social  reformers  and  (formerly) 
suffragettes  proclaim  their  exertions  endured  for 
"  conscience'  sake " ;  so,  for  the  most  part,  do 
missionaries  and  religious  functionaries,  and,  in 
fact,  all  and  any  who  engage  in  propaganda  or 
obstruction,  "  because,"  they  say,  "  something 
higher  than  reason  prompts  our  motives — 
'  conscience '."  f  Others  refer  to  conscience 
shyly  as  of  something  too  sacred  to  be  spoken 
of  publicly,  and  again  others  only  in  moments 
of  intense  earnestness — or  alcoholic  remorse. 

A  conscience,  in  fact,  is  an  invaluable  asset ; 
where  it  does  not  gain  approbation,  it  at  least 
gains  some  measure  of  respect. 

Most  people,  then,  admit  the  existence  and  the 
reality  of  what  we  popularly  call  "  conscience," 
and  although  fewer  people  are  agreed  as  to  its 
origin  and  nature,  it  is,  nevertheless,  accorded  a 
high  place  of  importance  and  almost  universal 
recognition  as  an  arbiter  in  the  affairs  of  men. 

So  undisputed  is  this  claim  to  inviolability  of 
conscience  in  twentieth- century  England  that 
the  State,  in  framing  her  laws,  modifies  their 
application  by  the  interspersion  of  caveats  in  the 
form  of  "  conscience  clauses." 

The  principle  on  which  the  conscience  proviso 
is   allowed   to    negative    the   universal   applica- 

*  A  few  years  ago  the  Animal  Defence  and  Anti- Vivisection  Society 
distributed  pamphlets  from  their  headquarters  In  Piccadilly,  beginning 
"  Do  not  ask  of  your  doctor  his  opinion  on  this  matter,  ask  your 
conscience"  etc. 

t  This  distinction  is  commonly  made  between  conscience  and  the 
intellectual  faculty  of  reason  ;  thus,  when  a  man  says,  "  My  conscience 
tells  me,"  he  usually  means,  "  No  reason  will  deter  me." 


INTRODUCTION  8 

bility  of  the  State's  demand  for  service  or  com- 
pliance with  her  rules  appears,  however,  to  be 
somewhat  arbitrary  and  uncertain,  and  can  hardly 
be  said  to  be  devised  solely  in  deference  to  any 
possible  religious  sanction,  since,  although  a  man's 
conscience  is  allowed  to  exempt  him  from  vac- 
cinating his  children,  the  plea  of  religious  sanc- 
tion, in  the  case  of  a  man  professing  the  poly- 
gamous doctrine  of  Brigham  Young,*  would  not 
exempt  him  from  amenability  to  the  law  con- 
cerning bigamy  ;  or,  again,  the  conscience  of  a 
Quaker  or  of  a  Christadelphian|  is  recognized  as  a 
stronger  qualification  for  exemption  from  com- 
batant service  than  the  equally  recalcitrant  con- 
sciences of,  e.g.  an  Atheist  or  a  Member  of 
the  Church  of  England.  Yet  the  standardization 
of  "  privileged "  denominational  consciences  is 
strongly  disavowed !  In  spite,  however,  of  a 
certain  illogical  inconsistency  in  practice,  it  is 
virtually  conceded  as  a  right  that  a  man  should 
justify  any  conduct  by  the  plea  of  "  conscience," 
even,  in  many  cases,  when  it  militates  directly 
against  the  good  of  the  State. 

Even  more  than  the  State  and  public  opinion 
does  the  Protestant  Church  insist  upon  the 
authority  and  inviolability  of  "  conscience." 
Driven,  step  by  step,  from  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation, by  the  encroachments  of  science  and  the 

*  Mormon  leader  and  preacher,  died  in  1877,  leaving  seventeen  wives. 

t  The  establishment  of  bona  fide  membership  of  either  of  the  above- 
mentioned  religious  societies  (inter  alia)  by  a  "  conscientious  objector  " 
was  recogniz3d  by  Military  Service  Tribimals  (acting  i  nder  official 
instructions)  as  sufficient  cause  for  a  verdict  of  exemption. 


4  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

progress  of  Rationalism,  from  her  defence  of  the 
infallibility  of  Doctrine  and  Scripture,  the  Pro- 
testant Church  has  sought  to  render  her  position 
impregnable  by  increased  insistence  upon  the 
inviolability  and  sanctity  of  revelation  and  con- 
science. Lecky,  speaking  of  the  trend  of  "  Protes- 
tant Rationalism,"  says  :  "  Its  central  conception 
is  the  elevation  of  conscience  into  a  position  of 
supreme  authority  as  the  religious  organ,  a  veri- 
fying faculty  discriminating  between  truth  and 
error."* 

The  most  recent  stalwarts  of  the  Church  of 
England  are  equally  insistent  upon  this  point, 
thus  the  Rev.  G.  L.  Richardson  writes  :  "  We 
shall  appeal  to  and  invigorate  the  conscience  in 
proportion  as  we  rely  upon  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the 
one  source  of  spiritual  power.  ...  '  The  fellow- 
ship of  the  Holy  Ghost  '  and  His  grace  through 
the  Church  is  the  master  word  of  the  twentieth 
century."  f  This  passage  well  illustrates  the 
supreme  importance,  with  regard  to  her  position, 
which  the  Church  attaches  to  the  appeal  to  con- 
science at  the  present  day.  In  another  passage 
the  same  author  says,  "  the  authority  of  con- 
science is  .  .  .  paramount  for  the  individual." 
Dr.  J.  N.  Figgis  in  his  "  Churches  in  the  Modem 
State "  says  that  any  doctrine  which  would 
"  destroy  the  springs  of  spiritual  life  in  the 
individual  conscience  would  be  disastrous  to 
civic  as  well  as  to  religious  life." 

*  "  Rationalism  in  Europe,"  1913  edition,  p.  167. 
t  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority  "  (1915). 


INTRODUCTION  5 

Having  raised  the  individual  conscience  to  a 
pinnacle  of  ethical  omniscience,  the  ecclesiastic 
next  proceeds  to  bring  it  into  line  with,  or  rather 
into  synchronous  subordination  to,  the  aggregate 
"  Church  Conscience."  "  The  Church  is  a  Divine 
society,  her  members  will  feel  an  obligation  to  be 
loyal  to  her  discipline.  .  .  .  The  conscience  of 
her  members  will  respond  with  approval  or 
shame  when  they  keep,  or  neglect  to  keep,  her 
standards."  From  this  the  resulting  "  code  and 
sentiment  "  is  the  "  Church  Conscience."  * 

Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton  throws  further  light 
on  this  interrelationship.  "  The  '  Church  Con- 
science '  is  rather  to  be  conceived  as  a  fortress  to 
which  the  individual  may  return  for  shelter  and 
strength  when  the  attacks  of  temptation  threaten 
to  overwhelm  him.  At  such  times  it  is  well  to 
feel  that  we  are  not  dependent  on  the  '  inner 
light '  of  conscience  alone,  but  that  we  can  throw 
ourselves  on  a  social  force  mightier  than  our  own, 
and  behold  with  astonishment  and  enthusiasm  a 
Divine  company  and  a  Divine  Captain."  | 

Whilst  Church  and  State  are  in  agreement  re- 
garding its  importance  and  sanctity,  the  same 
unanimity  is  not  exhibited  in  dealing  with  the 
origin  and  character  of  conscience.  Equally 
divided  in  this  respect  are  the  philosophers  and 
psychologists. 

Priests  are  fond  of  telling  us  that  conscience 
is  "  the  voice  of  God  within  us."     To  some  men 

*  «« Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  p.  150. 
t  "  Orthodoxy,"  p.  137,  quoted  by  G.  L.  Richardson. 


6  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

it  appears  strange  that  the  voice  of  the  same  God 
should  frequently  induce  men  to  oppose  each  other 
with  such  particular  bitterness.  This  objection 
is  sometimes  met  by  the  explanation  that  al- 
though it  is  the  voice  of  God  speaking  through  the 
medium  of  our  souls,  we  fail  to  recognize  or 
interpret  rightly  its  significance.  This  explana- 
tion, again,  is  not  altogether  satisfactory,  since, 
if  that  were  the  case,  the  voice  of  God  must  be  so 
uncertain  a  guide  it  were  better  not  to  rely  on  it. 
When  we  look  back  through  the  pages  of 
History  and  consider  the  actions  of  men  and  the 
motives  to  which  they  ascribe  them,  and  see  what 
an  orgy  of  blood,  of  persecutions,  of  burnings,  of 
torturings,  of  blind  passions  and  religious  frenzy, 
of  diabolical  imaginings  and  monstrous  eschato- 
logy  has  been  conceived  at  the  instigation  of  con- 
science and  religion,  and  prescribed  in  the  name 
of  God,  we  are  inclined  to  inquire  more  deeply 
into  the  meaning  and  credentials  of  this  watch- 
word of  all  ages. 


II 

THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL 
JUDGMENTS 

Any  investigation  of  the  phenomenon  of  moral 
conduct,  and  of  its  interpretation,  brings  us  face 
to  face  with  two  sets  of  conflicting  theories. 
These  may,  for  convenience,  be  roughly  divided 
into  the  two  principal  schools  of  thought  which 
have  been  termed  respectively  the  "  Moral 
Sense  "  or  "  Intuitive  "  schools  and  the  "  Ra- 
tionalistic schools  of  ethics."  Certain  writers  in 
their  search  for  the  springs  of  moral  conduct 
have  attempted  to  place  the  issue  between 
Naturalism  or  Determinism  (by  no  means  synony- 
mous or  necessarily  connected)  on  the  one  side, 
and  Theism  on  the  other  * ;  and,  in  their  eagerness 
to  discredit  the  former  to  the  advantage  of  the 
latter,  imagine  they  demolish  Determinism  (at 
any  rate  in  the  ethical  sphere)  by  "  pushing  it 
to  its  logical  conclusion  "  and  by  showing  that  it 
"  has  connected  completely  and  indissolubly,  as 
far  as  observation  can  carry  us,  mind  with 
matter ;  it  has  established  a  functional  relation 
to  exist  between  every  fact  of  thinking,  willing 
or  feeling,  on  the  one  side,  and  some  molecular 

*  See  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  p.  25. 
7 


8  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

change  in  the  body  on  the  other  side,  and  man, 
with  all  his  ways  and  works,  is  simply  a  part  of 
nature,  and  can,  by  no  device  of  thought,  be 
detached  from  or  set  above  it."  * 

What,  after  all,  is  involved  in  the  acceptance 
of  such  a  conclusion  ?  What  is  there  to  fear  ?  To 
concede  this,  it  is  thought,  would  mean  to  relegate 
man  to  the  position  of  a  mere  "  automaton," 
freed  from  "  accountability  to  God,  responsi- 
bility to  man,  and  the  fears  of  conscience." 

So  far  from  ridding  man  of  responsibility,  the 
clear  recognition  by  him  of  the  true  nature  of  his 
environment  and  antecedents,  the  laws  by  which 
they  influence  him,  and  his  inherent  capacity  of 
resistance — in  other  words,  the  two  processes 
observable  in  the  world,  action  contrary  to,  and 
action  along,  the  line  of  least  resistance  "f — does, 
on  the  contrary,  greatly  increase  his  responsi- 
bility of  action  and  his  power  to  know  himself. 

Is  not  mind  and  matter  subject  to  the  same 
law  ?  Do  they  not  react  to  the  same  God  ? 
What  matter,  then,  if  we  adopt  the  formula  of 
Pampsychism  and  assert  that  "  all  individual 
things  are  animated  albeit  in  divers  degrees  "  ? 
or  endorse  the  conclusion  of  Professor  James 
Ward,  who  "  finds  no  ground  for  separating 
organic  life  from  psychical  life  "  ?  and  continues  : 
"  All  life  is  experience.  We  cannot  therefore 
assume  that  experience  has  no  part  in  the  build- 

*  W.  H.  Mallock,  quoted  by  Richardson. 

t  Professor  James  Ward  uses  the  tenns  "  anabolic  "  and  "  catabolic  " 
processes  in  this  connexion,  also  in  a  sense  analogous  to  the  distinction 
between  doing  and  suffering. 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS      9 

ing  up  of  the  organism,  and  only  begins  when 
viable  organism  is  already  there."* 

The  belief  that  there  can  be  no  life  without 
mind  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  there  can 
be  no  mind  without  body.  As  John  Stuart  Mill 
pointed  out,  Determinism  does  not  imply 
Materialism,  a  man  may  be  a  spiritual  being 
but  yet  subject  to  the  law  of  causation.  Neither 
does  it  deny  the  dynamic  character  of  will,  but 
allows  that  not  only  our  conduct  but  our  character 
is  in  part  amenable  to  our  will.  The  causality 
involved  in  human  actions  would,  however,  en- 
able any  one  who  knew  perfectly  our  character 
and  our  circumstances  to  predict  our  actions. 

Such  considerations,  however,  although  con- 
tributory, do  not,  of  themselves,  decide  the 
question  with  which  we  are  here  concerned, 
namely.  What  is  the  real  meaning  and  what  the 
authority  of  "  conscience,"  or  of  that  mental 
act  which  takes  place  in  our  minds  when  we  call 
certain  conduct  "  right "  and  certain  conduct 
"  wrong  "  ? 

Apart  from  the  question  of  the  ultimate  sanc- 
tion of  moral  conduct,  there  have  always  been 
two  explanations  of  the  mental  act  variously 
known  as  "  ethical  judgment,"  "  moral  faculty," 
"  moral  sense  "  or  conscience.  On  the  one  side 
there  have  been  those  who  considered  that  moral 
judgment  was  an  emotion,  an  intuition,  or  in- 
stinctive recognition  of  right  or  wrong,  which 
implied  no  rational  or  intellectual  process  beyond 

*  J.  Ward,  "  Heredity  and  Memory,"  1913. 


10  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

that  which  is  involved  in  registering  or  perceiving 
the  fact.  And  on  the  other  side  there  have  been 
those  who  treat  moral  approbation  as  essentially 
an  act  of  judgment — the  result  of  the  reasoning 
and  intellectual  fiinction  of  the  mind. 

The  earliest  exponents  of  a  morality  that  in  no 
way  depended  upon  the  work  of  Reason  were  the 
ancient  Epicureans  and  Cyrenaics ;  since  for 
them  good  was  pleasure  and  evil  was  pain,  the 
sources  and  tests  of  all  ethical  truth  were  neces- 
sarily, in  consequence,  the  feelings  and  emotions. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  there  arose  a  school, 
associated  with  the  names  of  the  third  Lord 
Shaftesbury  and  Francis  Hutcheson,  the  Scotch 
philosopher,  which  became  known  as  the  "  moral 
sense "  school,  widely  different  from  the  old 
hedonistic  philosophers,  since  they  were  the  first 
to  assert  the  existence  of  a  distinctively  ethical, 
as  opposed  to  a  merely  pleasurable,  feeling. 

The  philosophers  of  the  "  moral  sense  "  school 
attempted  to  prove  that  there  existed  a  distinct 
moral  "  faculty  "  which  differed  from  all  other 
perceptions  or  ideas,  in  that  it  was  a  separate 
medium  by  which  men  could  recognize  ethical 
truth,  which  was  rather  a  matter  of  the  heart 
than  of  the  head. 

As  a  result  of  the  attacks  of  the  various  ra- 
tionalist schools  this  idea  of  a  "  moral  faculty  " 
has  been  for  the  most  part  abandoned  by  those 
who  approach  ethics  from  the  Religious  or 
Theistic  standpoint,  for  they  are  far  more  con- 
cerned to  estabhsh  the  "  Divine  authority  "  and 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS    11 

sacrosanct  character  of  conscience  than  influenced 
by  psychological  or  metaphysical  distinctions. 
For  the  most  part  such  writers  are  content  to 
assume  that  "  conscience  "  is  the  knowledge  of 
one's  own  soul  with  regard  to  questions  of  right 
and  wrong,  but  insist  on  that  element  of  Divine 
Guidance  which  alone,  they  think,  can  give  it  the 
necessary  authority  and  sanctity. 

The  Rev.  G.  H.  Richardson*  defines  conscience 
as  "  the  whole  personality  acting  ethically  ;  or, 
more  precisely,  conscience  is  the  reaction,  plea- 
surable or  painful,  of  the  whole  personality  in 
response  to  a  human  or  Divine  standard." 

It  is  neither  wholly  emotional  nor  wholly 
rational,  but  "  is  sensitive  to  motives  of  which 
the  pure  reason  would  take  no  account ;  it  is 
more  akin  to  instinct  than  intelligence."  Yet 
"  without  reason,  conscience  would  be  blind 
impulse,  though  it  might  feel  the  consciousness  of 
obligation."  f 

Clearly,  then,  conscience  can  derive  little 
validity  from  intelligence  ;  the  concession  to  the 
Rationalists  does  not  amount  to  much  ;  it  might 
almost  get  on  without  reason  altogether.  It  is 
the  Divine  authority  of  conscience  which,  for  the 
Theistic  writer,  is  the  factor  of  prime  importance. 

"As  we  are  bound  to  trust  reason  in  the  in- 
tellectual sphere,  so  we  are  boimd  to  trust  con- 
science in  the  moral  sphere.  To  deny  the  autho- 
rity of  the  one  or  the  other  is  to  distrust  the  Power 

*  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  p.  69. 
t  Ibid.,  pp.  67  and  68. 


12  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

in  whom  physical  and  moral  law  have  their 
source.  The  authority  of  conscience  is  thus 
paramount  for  the  individual ;  it  will  be  better 
for  me  to  do  what  is  objectively  wrong,  but  what  I 
conscientiously  believe  to  be  right,  than  do  what 
is  in  fact  right,  but  what  my  conscience  dis- 
approves.* " 

Here  the  writer  appears  to  abandon  his  Ra- 
tionalistic friends  altogether  ;  the  fanatic  is  given 
free  rein,  his  ravings  are  sacred. 

Dr.  H.  Rashdall,  who  by  many  is  considered 
representative  of  rationalistic  ethics,  insists  on  the 
"  objectivity  of  moral  judgment.  Feelings  or 
emotions  possess  no  objectivity ;  and  '  without 
objectivity,'  in  the  words  of  Eduard  von  Hart- 
mann,  '  ethic  has  no  meaning  '."f 

The  all-important  task  for  the  Theistic  writer 
is  to  establish  the  factor  of  Divine  impulse. 
"  Therefore  we  say  that  conscience  is  a  funda- 
mental form  of  man's  personal  consciousness  of 
eternity ;  that  ineffaceable  certainty  that  the 
relation  of  Duty,  with  Responsibility  and  Judg- 
ment, is  not  a  relation  which  stands  and  falls 
with  our  relations  to  the  world  and  to  men,  but 
in  its  essence  is  a  relation  to  the  holy  and  Almighty 
God.  .  .  .  Additional  force  seems  to  be  given 
to  this  way  of  regarding  the  Authority  of  con- 
science if  we  consider  that  its  activity  is  set  in 
motion  by  an  impulse  from  the  Divine  Per- 
sonality." { 

*  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  p.  96. 

t  Hastings  Rashdall :    "Is  Conscience  an  Emotion  ?  " 

X  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  p.  99. 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS    18 

Bishop  Butler  refers  to  conscience  as  the 
"  voice  of  God,"  and  as  "  supreme  among  human 
faculties  " ;  and  this  is  endorsed  by  Richardson, 
who  finds  that  Theism  is  essential  to  any  doctrine 
of  conscience,"  because  the  alternative  is  "  de- 
structive of  its  authority." 

Let  us  now  summarize  the  Theistic  conscience, 
variously  described  in  different  passages,  in  the 
author's  own  words :  "  Its  activity  is  set  in 
motion  by  an  impulse  from  the  Divine  Person- 
ality, and  does  not  originate  in  the  individual 
nor  the  world,"  yet  it  "  reacts  to  public  opinion," 
is  "  often  imreasonable  and  inconsistent,"  is 
"  subject  to  evolutionary  growth  "  and  is  "  not 
infallible,"  is  "  capable  of  infinite  variety  of 
interpretation  "  and  "  reacts  to  a  human  stan- 
dard," which,  however,  "  trails  some  clouds  of 
glory  from  its  Divine  original  "  ;  and  in  conclu- 
sion, "If  we  regard  conscience  not  as  a  phos- 
phorescent gleam  playing  upon  the  surface  of 
consciousness,  but  as  a  vital  impulse,  partly 
rational,  partly  instinctive,  welling  up  from  the 
depths  of  Personality,  we  shall  not  run  the  risk 
of  denying  its  authority."*  It  would  be  well, 
however,  not  to  underestimate  the  risk,  although 
it  undoubtedly  caters  for  a  great  variety  of 
tastes. 

Allied  to  the  Emotional  school  for  the  purpose 
of  proving  conscience  are  those  RationaUsts,  of 
whom  we  have  taken  Dr.  Rashdall  as  an  example, 
who  have  for  an  object  the  establishment  of  the 

"Conscience,  its  Origin  and  Authority,"  pp.  99,95,96,70,72  and  78. 


14  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

"  objective  "  validity  of  moral  judgment.  The 
real  contention  becomes  clearer ;  the  chief  point 
at  issue  is  the  question  of  authority. 

We  see,  then,  that  there  are  two  points  to  be 
decided  :  (1)  the  ultimate  validity,  with  which  is 
connected  the  question  of  the  Divine  Authority,  of 
moral  judgments  ;  and  (2)  the  mode  of  recog- 
nition, with  which  is  connected  the  cause  or 
propellent  which  induces  moral  action. 

Rashdall  summarily  dismisses  the  dual  cha- 
racter of  the  problem  in  a  phrase.  "  The  ques- 
tion at  issue  between  Rationalists  and  Emo- 
tionalists is  not  what  impels  me  to  do  a  virtuous 
act,  but  how  I  know  it  to  be  virtuous."*  The 
connexion  between  motive  and  judgment  is  too 
closely  related  to  be  thus  calmly  ignored.  It  is 
agreed  that  the  motive  does  not  affect  the  intrinsic 
character  or  "  Tightness  "  of  an  action,  but  at 
the  same  time  it  most  certainly  does  affect  a  man's 
estimation  of  his  action ;  and  this,  in  order  to 
arrive  at  the  value  of  moral  judgments,  is  most 
obviously  relevant. 

For  Dr.  Rashdall  the  distinction  between  how  I 
know  my  action  to  be  right  or  virtuous,  and  how 
it  is  virtuous,  does  not  exist.  Both  imply 
recognition  or  statement  of  indisputable  fact ; 
for  him  there  can  be  no  ultimate  doubt  as  to  the 
character  of  moral  "  good,"  which  can  in  no  way 
be  a  matter  of  opinion,  for  good  is  sui  generis  : 
it  is  good  and  nothing  else  ;  happiness  may  be 
good,  honesty  may  be  good,  but  good  is  good  for 

*  "  Is  Conscience  an  Emotion  ?  "  p.  113. 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS    15 

no  other  reason  than  because  such  an  abstraction 
is  supposed  to  exist  as  a  transcendental  fact. 
"  Therefore  good  can  be  recognized  just  as  any 
axiomatic  truth  can  be  recognized;  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  fact  that  2+2  =  4,  or  two  straight 
Hnes  cannot  enclose  a  space."  How  is  it  then 
that  people  even  of  the  highest  intelligence  do  not 
invariably  agree  about  what  is  good  or  morally 
right  ? 

There  are  no  two  opinions  about  whether  2+2 
does,  or  does  not,  equal  4,  yet  there  is  no  such 
general  agreement  about  what  is  right.  If  asked 
why  a  thing  is  right  or  good  most  people  would 
reply  either  by  giving  a  reason  to  show  that  it 
is  desirable  or  else  by  quoting  the  authority  of 
some  one  else's  ipse  dixit  (in  which  case  it  is 
inferred  that  the  authority  quoted  had  some 
reason  for  supposing  it  desirable).  The  reason 
that  2  +  2  =  4  is,  on  the  other  hand,  that  there 
can  be  no  possible  alternative.  Yet  is  it  true 
to  say  that  there  can  be  no  possible  alternative 
to  what  the  consensus  of  opinion  in  any  one 
country  considers  morally  right  ?  Some  things 
that  are  considered  immoral  in  England  are 
considered  moral  in  Japan,  and  vice  versa. 

Dr.  Rashdall,  however,  conceives  of  but  two 
alternatives  in  estimating  moral  values,  the  first 
of  which  he  dismisses,  because  on  this  view  "  our 
moral  judgments  could  possess  no  objective 
validity."  He  says  :"...!  examined  the  ques- 
tion whether  our  moral  judgments  are  in  ultimate 
analysis  merely  statements  asserting  the  existence 


16  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

of  a  particular  kind  of  feeling  in  particular  minds, 
or  whether  they  are  intellectual  judgments  of 
universal  validity — judgments,  of  course,  of  a  very 
peculiar  and  distinctive  kind,  but  just  as  much 
intellectual  and  universal  judgments  about  the 
nature  of  Reality  as  the  judgments  2  +  2  =  4,  or 
'  this  is  a  good  inference  and  that  is  a  bad  one '."  * 

It  is  difficult  to  know  whether  this  arbitrary 
elimination  of  the  subjective  element  from  ethical 
judgments,  and  the  attempt  to  translate  moral 
values  into  terms  of  mathematical  formulae,  is 
intended  to  denote  the  infusion  of  a  mystic 
factor  into  the  *'  exact  sciences,"  or  an  attempt 
to  reduce  metaphysics  and  morality  to  rule  of 
thumb  !  The  following  thesis,  however,  which 
will  be  elaborated  in  the  course  of  this  discussion, 
is  based  on  a  synchronous  realization  of  rational 
principles  and  psychological  processes. 

Thus,  what  an  individual  conceives  to  be 
morally  right  and  good,  when  he  is  conscious  of 
having  acted  so  according  to  his  own  standard, 
may  be  either  : 

(1)  Wholly  irrational,  illogical,  anti-social  and 
undesirable  (from  every  point  of  view  except  his 
own),  even  though  arrived  at  solely  by  an  in- 
tellectual and  reasoning  process  ;    or 

(2)  An  entirely  instinctive,  blindly  impulsive 
or  emotional  action,  afterwards  endorsed  by  the 
intellect  (i.e.  subsequently  rationalized) ;   or 

(3)  The  result  of  thoughtful  deliberation,  care- 
fully and  logically  designed  to  bring  about  certain 

*  "  Is  Conscience  an  Emotion  ?  "  p.  52. 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS    17 

preconceived  "  moral  "  ends  such  as  social  happi- 
ness, justice,  fulfilment  of  duty  ;  all  of  which  are 
artificial  and  conventional  standards,  and  good 
only  because  they  are  desirable,  not  because  they 
are  universally  valid — irrespective  of  time,  lo- 
cality and  circumstances ;    or 

(4)  Any  combination  of  these  three. 

The  foregoing  applies  as  much  to  the  aggregate 
moral  consciousness  of  a  community  in  different 
stages  of  civilization,  or  in  varying  states  of 
emotional  abnormality,  as  to  the  individual 
conscience. 

It  can  also  be  shown  that  the  "  communal 
conscience "  reacts  upon  the  "  individual  con- 
science "  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  latter' s  emotional 
or  intellectual  capacity  for  resistance  ;  and  that 
the  "  communal  conscience "  (identified  at  a 
later  stage  of  this  inquiry  with  "  Cosmic  Sug- 
gestion ")  is  the  integral  product  of  the  numerical 
and  dynamic  strength  of  the  convictions  of  the 
members  of  the  community,  and  operates  upon 
the  "  individual  conscience,"  either  consciously 
or  subconsciously,  in  the  same  way  that  "  Sug- 
gestion," according  to  the  law  discovered  by 
Liebeault  and  employed  by  the  Nancy  School, 
operates  in  hypnotic  phenomena. 

It  will  then  (if  this  view  can  be  established) 
be  shown  that  the  factors  of  conscience  are  : 
(1)  emotional,  (2)  intellectual,  (3)  internal 
(including  hereditary  and  organic  elements),  and 
(4)  external  (environment — material  and  psy- 
chic) ;  and  that  its  validity,  in  ultimate  analysis, 


18  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

can  but  rest  on  codes,  which  may  be  not  only 
Conventional  and  Artificial,  but  also  Rational 
or  Intellectual,  Social  and  Utilitarian ;  and  in 
any  case  variable,  in  the  same  way  that  the 
soundest  and  most  logical  policies  must,  to  a 
certain  extent,  be  variable,  or  capable  of  adjust- 
ment as  circumstances  change  ;  the  only  elements 
which  should  be  constant  and  invariable  in  any 
policy  (which  is  not  a  misnomer)  being  logic  and 
truth.     So  it  is  with  rules  of  conduct. 

As  regards  the  purely  internal  sanction  of  our 
actions  and  thoughts,  that  is  to  say,  our  relation- 
ship with  Ultimate  Reality,  which  is  God  or  the 
Law  of  Existence,  there  is  only  one  conception  of 
the  latter  which  seems  to  comprehend  the  infinite 
with  the  finite,  and  that  is  Force,  because  it  is  the 
continuity  of  Existence,  or  after  the  manner  of 
Leibnitz :  "  Substance,  the  ultimate  reality,  can 
only  be  conceived  as  force."  Any  moral  law 
which  may  be  said  to  be  fundamental  in  itself 
and  independent  of  circumstances  wiU  be  in 
relation  to  force.  But  such  "  laws  "  will  also  be 
independent  of  the  moral  imperatives  and  written 
codes,  for  they  are  independent  of  volition — of  the 
will  to  obey  them.  Can  a  man  be  possessed  of 
love,  greatness,  nobility,  courage,  honour,  at  a 
word  of  command  ?  Therefore  if  it  can  be  truly 
said  that  "  love  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world,"  it  is  because  it  is  the  most  powerful 
force.  Hate  is  disruptive,  disintegrating  and  anni- 
hilating ;   love  is  integrating  and  strengthening. 

But  there  is  yet  one  "  good,"  one  fundamental 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  MORAL  JUDGMENTS    19 

imperative  which  needs  no  proof,  and  that  is 
Truth — ultimate  truth,  because  it  is  the  state- 
ment of  what  Is ;  without  which  logic,  or,  indeed, 
intelligible  language,  would  be  impossible.  But 
truth  is  not  opinion,  or  assertion,  or  hope,  or 
faith,  or  in  the  words  of  Huxley  "  those  idols 
built  up  of  books  and  traditions  and  fine-spun 
ecclesiastical  cobwebs."  Truth  and  all  its  de- 
rivatives— honesty,  integrity,  truthfulness  and 
sincerity — ^have  an  intrinsic  value  of  their  own, 
for  their  negation  implies  the  negation  of  the 
principles  of  Existence. 

But  men  require  more  than  this,  they  require 
a  "  moral  code  "  or  standard  to  give  coherence 
to  their  relationships ;  this  code,  then,  is  that 
which  is  desired,  or  imposed,  and  this  want 
is  most  efficiently  supplied  by  the  principle  of 
"  Utility." 


m 

THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL 
OBLIGATION 

The  author  of  "  Conscience,  its  Origin  and 
Authority,"  attempts,  after  the  manner  of  priests, 
to  demohsh  the  UtiUtarian  principle  of  moraUty 
by  stating  that  the  UtiUtarian  must,  to  be  logical, 
justify  any  means  if  the  end  is  desirable.  As 
though  the  Utilitarian  and  not  the  Theist  was 
for  ever  trying  to  show  that  the  intrinsic  character 
or  value  of  an  action  depended  upon  the  motive 
(which  must  be  distinguished  from  the  intention ; 
a  man  who  saved  another  from  drowning  in 
order  to  put  him  to  death  afterwards  would  be 
influenced  by  an  intention  to  murder,  but  the 
motives  were  :  first,  desire  to  rescue,  and,  for 
the  subsequent  action,  desire  to  kill).  Mr. 
Richardson  writes  :  "  The  Good  and  the  Right 
possess  their  authority  to  the  Utilitarian  because 
they  tend  to  the  greatest  possible  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number  of  sentient  beings.  Now  suppose 
a  case  which  I  do  not  think  actually  happened, 
but  which  may  easily  be  conceived  as  happening. 
Suppose  that  Cecil  Rhodes  deUberately  caused 
the  South  African  War,  as  many  people  beheved 
at  the  time.     This  would  be  characterized  (and 

20 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    21 

was,  in  fact,  characterized)  as  an  immoral  act  of 
unscrupulous  aggression.  But  he  might  defend 
his  action  thus  :  "  Granted  that  so  many  thou- 
sands of  soldiers  and  citizens  will  be  slain,  and 
the  land  cleared  of  its  inhabitants.  In  a  few 
years  the  land  so  cleared  will  produce  increased 
harvests  of  gold  and  grain.  More  food  will  mean 
an  increase  of  human  productiveness  and  an 
increase  of  population ;  thriving  townships  and 
farmsteads  will  support  a  people  more  numerous 
and  richer  in  the  comforts  which  make  life 
desirable  than  could  have  existed  without  my 
action.  Therefore  on  the  Utilitarian  hypothesis 
my  action  was  right  and  good,  and  deserved,  not 
reprobation,  but  approval." 

Not  only  is  this  position  not  admitted  by 
Utilitarians,  but  John  Stuart  Mill  long  ago 
pointed  out  that  such  a  hypothesis  "  is  to  mistake 
the  very  meaning  of  a  standard  of  morals,  and 
to  confound  the  rule  of  action  with  the  motive 
of  it.  It  is  the  business  of  Ethics  to  tell  us  what 
are  our  duties,  or  by  what  test  we  may  know 
them ;  but  no  system  of  ethics  requires  that  the 
sole  motive  of  all  we  do  shall  be  a  feeling  of 
duty.  .  .  .  The  great  majority  of  good  actions 
are  intended,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  world, 
but  for  that  of  individuals,  of  which  the  good  of 
the  world  is  made  up  ;  and  the  thoughts  of  the 
most  virtuous  man  need  not  on  these  occasions 
travel  beyond  the  particular  persons  concerned, 
except  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  assure  himself 
that  in  benefiting  them  he  is  not  violating  the 


22  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

rights — that   is,    the   legitimate   and   authorized 
expectations — of  any  one  else."  * 

This  is  sufficient  refutation  of  such  objections 
to  Utilitarianism  as  the  one  brought  forward  by 
Richardson,  and  clearly  founded  on  a  miscon- 
ception. 

Mill,  in  what  is  still  the  best  defence  of  this 
system,  continues :  "  Utilitarians  .  .  .  are  .  .  . 
of  opinion  that  in  the  long  run  the  best  proof  of  a 
good  character  is  good  actions  ;  and  resolutely 
refuse  to  consider  any  mental  disposition  as  good, 
of  which  the  predominant  tendency  is  to  produce 
bad  conduct."  | 

"  The  creed  which  accepts  as  the  foundation 
of  morals,  Utility,  or  the  Greatest  Happiness 
Principle,  holds  that  actions  are  right  in  pro- 
portion as  they  tend  to  promote  happiness, 
wrong  as  they  tend  to  produce  the  reverse  of 
happiness."  J 

The  Theistic  writer  says  "  the  essence  of 
morality  is  sacrifice."  § 

The  utilitarian  morality  does  recognize  in 
human  beings  the  power  of  sacrificing  their  own 
greatest  good  for  the  good  of  others.  It  only 
refuses  to  admit  that  sacrifice  is  itself  a  good.  A 
sacrifice  that  does  not  increase,  or  tend  to  increase, 
the  sum  total  of  happiness,  it  considers  as  wasted. 
As  regards  "  conscience  "  :  the  Utilitarian, 
when  he  attempts  an  analysis,  realizes  that  "  in 
that  complex  phenomenon  as  it  actually  exists, 

*  "  Utilitarianism,"  15th  edition,  p.  27. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  30.  t  Ibid.,  p.  9. 

§  Richardson's  "  Conscience,"  p.  151. 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    23 

the  simple  fact  is  in  general  all  encrusted  over 
with  collateral  associations  derived  from  sym- 
pathy, from  love,  and  still  more  from  fear ; 
from  all  forms  of  religious  feeling ;  from  re- 
collections of  childhood  and  of  all  our  past  life  ; 
from  self-esteem,  desire  of  the  esteem  of  others, 
and  occasionally  even  self-abasement."  * 

For  the  priest  "  ethics  cannot  be  built  securely 
upon  anything  less  than  religious  sanctions,  and 
it  is  for  the  sake  of  conscience  that  ethics  have 
a  practical  value."  f 

Can  an  honest  and  imbiased  thinker  doubt  that 
the  first  is  the  truer  statement  ? 

Let  us  now  return  to  a  further  statement  of  the 
position  of  Utilitarianism  as  dealt  with  by  J.  S. 
Mill.  From  Professor  Sidgwick  and  those  Utili- 
tarians who  attempt  to  claim  for  the  atheistic 
moralist  a  conscience  of  mathematical  accuracy 
we  are  unlikely  to  derive  much  assistance. 

"  According  to  the  Greatest  Happiness  Prin- 
ciple, the  ultimate  end,  with  reference  to,  and  for 
the  sake  of  which,  all  other  things  are  desirable 
(whether  we  are  considering  our  own  good  or  that 
of  other  people),  is  an  existence  exempt  as  far  as 
possible  from  pain  and  as  rich  as  possible  in 
enjoyments,  both  in  point  of  quantity  and  quality ; 
the  test  of  quality,  and  the  rule  for  measuring 
it  against  quantity,  being  the  preference  felt  by 
those  who,  in  their  opportunities  of  experience, 
to  which  must  be   added  their  habits  of  self- 

*  "  utilitarianism,"  p.  42. 

■\  Richardson's  "  Conscience,"  p.  211. 


24  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

consciousness  and  self-observation,  are  best  fur- 
nished with  the  means  of  comparison."  * 

This,  according  to  UtiUtarians,  is  also  the 
standard  of  morality. 

In  conformance  with  this  principle  of  moral 
obligation,  we  choose  the  greater  before  the 
lesser  good.  Between  General  Morality  and  the 
obligation  of  Duty,  with  which  he  associates 
justice,  Mill  draws  what  appears  to  be  a  somewhat 
unnecessarily  hard  line  of  distinction,  insomuch 
as  the  difference  may  be  seen  to  consist  more  of 
degree  than  of  kind.  Other  ethical  writers  make 
the  same  distinction  when  they  divide  moral 
duties  into  the  two  classes  of  perfect  and  im- 
perfect obligation,  "  the  latter  being  those  in 
which,  though  the  act  is  obligatory,  the  particular 
occasions  of  performing  it  are  left  to  our  choice, 
as  in  the  case  of  charity  or  beneficence." 

If,  in  assessing  the  "  amount "  of  good,  we 
take  into  consideration,  besides  the  categories  of 
quantity  and  quality,  a  third  category  of  "  proxi- 
mity," it  would,  I  think,  prove  a  useful  qualifica- 
tion by  enabling  the  Utilitarian  Good  to  embrace 
all  moral  obligation,  including  legal  Duty,  which 
is  considered  by  Mill  apart  from  general  morality. 
By  "  proximity  "  it  is  intended  to  imply  that  the 
nearer  good  is  more  binding  than  the  further 
good,  which  may  in  some  measure  counteract  the 
value  of  "  quantity  and  quality  "  where  these 
are  involved,  and  when  a  decision  between  con- 
flicting moral  obligations  has  to  be  made. 

•  J.  S.  Mill,  "  Utilitarianism." 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    25 

Though  this  additional  category  of  Good  may 
not  altogether  abolish  the  distinction  which  Mill 
makes  between  general  morality  and  justice  or 
duty  which  may  be  obligatory  by  law,  it  appears 
to  amplify  and  extend  the  scope  of  the  principle 
of  Utility. 

"  Duty,"  in  the  words  of  J.  S.  Mill,  "  is  a  thing 
which  may  be  exacted  from  a  person  as  one 
exacts  a  debt.  Unless  we  think  that  it  might  be 
exacted  from  him  we  do  not  call  it  his  duty." 

From  this  it  might  be  assumed  that  there  could 
never  be  any  doubt  about  what  is  a  person's  duty, 
since  when  any  one  owes  another  or  the  com- 
munity a  debt,  he  is  clearly  conscious  of  it,  even 
to  the  amount.  In  the  case  of  right  conduct 
which  implies  Duty,  this,  however,  is  not  always 
so  clearly  recognized,  especially  when  Duty  im- 
plies Allegiance  or  Responsibility. 

In  this  connexion  we  may  say  that  the  good  we 
do  for  our  own  country  is  a  nearer  good  than  the 
good  we  do  for  an  alien  country,  therefore  if 
doing  the  good  involves  a  choice  we  should 
choose  our  own  country  ;  for  the  debt  we  owe  to 
our  own  country  is  greater  than  the  debt  we  owe 
to  humanity  at  large.  Equally  the  good  we  owe 
to  our  own  family  is  nearer  than,  and  therefore 
comes  before,  the  good  we  owe  to  society.  To 
this  most  people  will  accede,  and,  in  fact,  the 
realization  of  this  is  at  the  base  of  all  sense  of 
Responsibility;  thus  every  man,  in  whatsoever 
capacity  he  is  acting,  whether  as  statesman, 
county  councillor,  soldier  or  head  of  a  family, 


26  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

should  put  the  considerations  of  the  body  he 
represents  or  belongs  to  before  all  others  ;  and 
finally  he  owes  it  to  himself — or  God  * — ^to  be 
true  to  himself,  even  before  he  can  be  true  to 
another,  in  the  sense  that  keeping  faith  with  a 
friend  will  not  excuse  a  man  acting  dishonestly  or 
untruthfully  towards  himself.  And  this  for  the 
reason  that  Truth  is  independent  of  Utilitarian 
valuation,  since  Truth  alone  is  an  a  priori 
and  self-evident  "  good  "  ;  by  its  very  meaning 
it  is  a  statement  of  "  what  is,"  temporally  as 
well  as  ultimately  ;  as  such  it  must  be  a  state- 
ment of  indisputable  fact,  not  opinion  or  faith 
which  rests  on  assertion.  Since  more  things  are 
capable  of  being  proved  untrue  than  ultimately 
true,  it  follows  that  as  a  criterion  of  conduct  its 
value  is  chiefly  negative.  It  can  thus  be  shown 
that  lying,  deception,  breach  of  contract  are 
wrong  per  se^  for  truth  is  the  basic  principle  upon 
which  all  others  depend,  and  the  necessary  pos- 
tulate of  the  idea  of  God,  whilst  the  value  of 
our  positive  acts  must  for  the  most  part  depend 
upon  some  such  standard  as  the  Greatest  Happi- 
ness or  Utility  principle. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  "  nearer  is  the  greater 
good  "  principle  may  be  cited  the  line  taken  up  by 
Disraeli  when  the  controversy  over  the  opium 
trade  between  India  and  China  first  came  to  the 
fore.     Disraeli  firmly  refused  to  ruin  our  export 

*  The  idea  of  God  personified  is  often  used  as  standing  for  a  symbol 
or  norm  of  ideal  conduct,  bearing  an  affinity  to  the  ideal  self  or  ego. 
The  theory  of  conduct  maintained  here  is  therefore  equally  applicable 
to  Theist  or  Atheist, 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    27 

trade  in  opium  for  any  quixotic  considerations 
involving  the  moral  effect  upon  the  Chinaman, 
whilst  it  in  no  way  implied  a  breach  of  faith  with 
him. 

Less  clear  is  the  question  of  precedence  when 
two  primary  obligations  are  conflicting  ;  primary 
obligations  are  here  intended  to  mean  those 
obligatory  duties  which  may  rightly  be  exacted 
from  a  person  by  reason  of  his  indebtedness  to 
the  corporate  body  to  which  he  belongs,  or  which 
he  represents,  and  which  is  entitled  to  a  preference 
in  the  good  he  does. 

For  instance,  it  may  sometimes  be  said  that  a 
man's  duty  to  his  country  as  a  soldier  conflicts 
with  his  duty  to  his  family  as  its  sole  support ; 
both  are  primary  obligations  ;  as  long,  then,  as 
allegiance  to  one  does  not  involve  a  betrayal  of 
the  other,  which  could  only  be  if  their  interests 
were  fundamentally  opposed  and  directed  against 
each  other,  both  obligations  must  be  equally 
acknowledged,  and  a  via  media  discovered  to 
satisfy  the  claims  of  both  to  an  equal  extent. 

Should,  however,  this  confliction  of  interests 
be  so  direct  and  antagonistic  as  necessarily  to 
involve  an  overt  repudiation  of  the  claims  of  one 
or  the  other,  as  in  the  hypothetical  case  of  a 
soldier  being  ordered  to  execute  the  members  of 
his  own  family,  his  conduct,  supposing  him  to  be 
actuated  by  a  desire  to  act  solely  in  conformance 
with  ethical  considerations,  would  be  determined 
by  his  judgment  as  to  which  course  would  promote 
the  greater  good  or  Utility,  having  regard  to  the 


28  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

categories :  quantity,  quality  and  proximity; 
the  "  nearer "  in  this  case  undoubtedly  being 
his  family,  though  this  fact  alone  would  not 
necessarily  outweigh  the  other  values  of  quantity 
and  quality.  In  certain  Eastern  countries  it 
would  possibly  appeal  to  a  man's  sense  of  appro- 
priateness to  be  the  agent  by  which  the  crime  or 
dishonour  of  his  relative  would  be  expiated. 

A  man  is  often  heard  to  claim  that  his  moral 
duty  towards  himself,  in  other  words  "  his  con- 
science," absolves  him  from  the  fulfilment  of 
another  primary  duty  or  obligation.  As  I  have 
attempted  to  show,  the  only  real  or  a  priori  duty 
which  a  man  can  prove  he  owes  to  himself,  and 
therefore  has  a  right  to  place  before  any  other 
clear  duty  derived  from  the  fact  of  his  membership 
of  any  community  or  corporate  body,  is  his 
obligation  not  to  violate  Truth,  which  is  a  state- 
ment of  reality,  not  of  opinion.  Thus  no  other 
duty  can  rightly  oblige  a  man  to  perjure  himself. 

If  this  maxim  is  accepted,  it  will  be  seen  that  a 
deadlock  of  this  sort  between  a  man's  duty  to  his 
country  as  a  citizen  and  his  duty  to  himself  or  his 
"  conscience,"  could  rarely  occur  in  a  civilized  or 
rational  community.  Against  this  a  man  might 
argue  that  he  had  solemnly  vowed  not  to  shed 
human  blood,  either  as  a  soldier  or  otherwise, 
and  that  he  is  right  to  resist  any  attempt  to 
conscript  him  for  the  army,  since  he  would 
thereby  be  required  to  perjure  himself.  The 
answer  is  simple,  for  the  man  clearly  violated  his 
duty  to  his  country  in  the  first  place  by  vowing  he 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    29 

would  deprive  his  country  of  his  services  should 
they  be  required,  a  right  which  no  country  has  ever 
forsworn  and  which  is  considered  the  natural 
return  due  for  free  citizenship  and  state  protec- 
tion ;  these  conditions  are  presumed  to  be  accepted 
with  the  benefits  of  citizenship  and  protection 
of  person  and  property ;  his  first  violation  of 
duty  towards  his  country  will  therefore  not 
absolve  him  of  a  second. 

Neither  can  it  be  shown  according  to  this 
principle  that  a  man  is  entitled  to  take  an  oath 
of  this  nature,  regardless  of  potential  conflicting 
obligations,  on  the  score  that  such  an  oath  is 
merely  in  conformance  with  the  postulates  of 
Truth,  since  the  question  of  the  Rightness  or 
Wrongness  of  shedding  blood  under  all  circum- 
stances is  not  susceptible  of  ultimate  proof,  but 
must  remain  finally  on  the  authority  of  an  ipse 
dixit,  or  of  Utility. 

Thus  far  we  have  examined  to  some  extent  the 
purely  ethical  basis  on  which  the  idea  of  priority 
of  duty,  as  evinced  by  conscience  or  reason, 
rests :  the  sanction  of  conscience  which  rests  on 
religious  authority  is  dealt  with  elsewhere. 

To  further  illustrate  the  "  nearer  good  "  prin- 
ciple with  which  we  have  been  dealing,  it  may  be 
profitable  to  refer  to  a  passage  from  an  account  of 
the  life  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee,  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Confederate  troops  during  the  Ameri- 
can Civil  War,  a  devoutly  religious  man,  and  a  life- 
long member  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.* 

*  N.  B.  Webster  in  "  Chambers's  Encyclopaedia." 


30  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

"  Colonel  Lee  was  in  command  of  the  depart- 
ment of  Texas  in  1860,  but  was  recalled  to 
Washington  early  in  1861,  when  the  '  irrepressible 
conflict '  between  the  free  and  the  slave  states 
seemed  imminent.  When  Lee  reached  the  capital 
in  March  1861,  seven  states  had  passed  ordinances 
of  secession  from  the  Union,  and  had  formed  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  Virginia  seceded  from 
the  Union  on  April  17,  and  Colonel  Lee,  believing 
that  his  supreme  political  allegiance  was  due  to 
his  state  rather  than  to  the  Union,  felt  compelled 
to  send  his  resignation  to  General  Scott,  which  he 
did  on  April  20.  The  bitter  struggle  between  his 
personal  preferences  and  his  high  sense  of  duty 
is  shown  in  the  words  of  his  wife  written  to  a 
friend  at  the  time  :  "  My  husband  has  wept  tears 
of  blood  over  this  terrible  war ;  but  he  must  as  a 
man  and  a  Virginian  share  the  destiny  of  his 
state,  which  has  solemnly  pronounced  for  inde- 
pendence." 

Lee's  action  in  choosing  the  "  nearer  "  duty 
to  his  own  state  in  preference  to  the  duty  he  owed 
to  the  Union  as  a  soldier  and  a  citizen,  even  against 
his  personal  preferences  and,  as  far  as  one  can 
discern  them,  his  religious  opinions,  affords  a 
striking  example  of  the  principle  I  have  been 
attempting  to  illustrate. 

Whether  his  decision  was  arrived  at  spon- 
taneously and  impulsively,  or  as  the  result  of 
deliberation,  is  immaterial  as  affecting  the  "  light- 
ness" of  his  action.  Equally  immaterial  is  the 
possibility   that   he   might   have   arrived   at   an 


THE  MEANING  OF  MORAL  OBLIGATION    81 

opposite  conclusion  whilst  still  employing  the 
same  principles,  by  judging  that  the  categories 
of  "  quantity  "  and  "  quality  "  outweighed  that 
of  "  proximity."  Whenever  clear  duties  are 
mutually  annihilating,  which  fortunately  is  very 
rarely  the  case,  the  problem  will  always  have  to 
be  solved,  if  it  is  solved  with  scrupulous  honesty, 
by  a  careful  balance  of  values,  whilst  the  result 
at  best  cannot  be  infallible. 

What  stands  out,  however,  in  this  case,  is  the 
triumph  of  clearly  recognized  duty  founded  on 
"  nearer  "  indebtedness,  and  so  of  responsibility, 
over  lesser  indebtedness,  even  though  the  latter 
was  reinforced  by  personal  predilection  and 
religious  sentiment. 


IV 

RELIGION  AND  MORALITY 

As  long  as  morality  is  regarded  as  a  Divinely 
implanted  principle,  subject  to  no  laws  beyond  the 
caprice  and  changing  mood  of  a  personal  Deity, 
the  essentials  which  imderlie  oxir  conduct  are 
lost  sight  of.  Morality,  that  is  to  say  those 
moral  codes  which  are  observed  and  recognized, 
consists  of  the  imposition  of  values ;  but  the 
meaning  and  the  virtue  of  those  values  lie  in  the 
policy  which  will  produce  desired  results.  Moral 
values  are  subject  to  constant  revision  as  world 
influences  affect  our  outlook.  Our  endeavour 
should  always  be  to  probe  the  essentials.  As  long 
as  morality  is  thought  to  depend  on  "  Revela- 
tion "  and  religious  superstition,  the  essentials  are 
lost  sight  of.  The  connexion  between  Religion 
and  Morality  is  arbitrary,  and  since  Religions 
owe  their  power  to  the  fear  of  the  Unknown, 
and  the  virtue  of  Morality  depends  upon  the 
necessity  of  conforming  to  that  mode  of  conduct 
which  will  produce  known  results,  Rehgions  tend 
to  mask  the  essentials  in  MoraUty  and  make  it 
unreal. 

Morality  is  held  to  include  two  distinct  prin- 
ciples ;     moral   obligation,    or   conduct   towards 

82 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  88 

others,  and  conduct  towards,  or  the  debt  we  owe, 
ourselves.     We  are  here  concerned  chiefly  with 
the   first ;     the   second — those   rules   of  conduct 
which  concern  only  ourselves,  are  bound  up  with 
the  purpose  of  existence,  with  the  ultimate  end. 
Moral  obligation  has  arisen  out  of  the  necessity 
for    co-ordination    and    system    in    our    mutual 
relationships.     Without  a  moral  code,  social  life 
would  become  chaotic  and  impossible,  comparable 
only  to  the  state  of  Russia  under  mob  rule  in  the 
year  of  grace  1918 — a  state  immeasurably  more 
degraded  than  that  of  Britain  in  the  era  B.C. ; 
the  early  Briton  like  the  modern  Kafir,  at  any  rate, 
gave    vent    to    his    predatory    and    murderous 
instincts,   for   the   most   part,    outside   his   own 
little  tribe.     The  imposition  of  some  recognized 
rules   of  conduct,    safeguarding  the   security   of 
life  and  property,  is  as  necessary  to  the  community 
as  the  existence  of  a  coinage  for  the  negotiation  of 
commercial  bargains  ;   in  fact  it  is  more  so.     The 
two  are  analogous  :    the  moral  code  must  give 
effect   to   that   first   and   universal   principle   of 
ethics  expressed  thus,  "  Do  unto  others  as  you 
would  they  should  do  unto  you,"  which  is  only 
another  way  of  saying,  "  You  may  expect  others 
to  treat  you  as  you  intend  to  treat  them  in 
similar  circumstances."      Hence  the  standardiza- 
tion of  rules  of  conduct  becomes  a  principle  of 
Utility.     Altruism  has  nothing  whatsoever  to  do 
with  it.     Even  indignation  at  the  spectacle  of 
acute   suffering  needlessly  inflicted  on  animals, 
where  considerations  of  reciprocal  treatment  on 


84  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

the  part  of  the  animal  do  not  apply,  is  correctly- 
based  on  the  offence  such  a  "  discordance  "  causes 
to  the  aesthetic  sensibility  of  the  cultivated,  or 
the  induced  sympathetic  discomfort  of  the  many. 
In  many  natures  the  pain-suggesting  spectacle, 
or  even  the  mere  thought  of  it,  spontaneously 
evokes  anger,  which  seeks  satisfaction  in  the 
punishment  of  the  author  of  its  occurrence. 
The  only  rational  or  intellectual  process  involved 
in  the  resulting  "  moral  judgment "  is,  as  a  rule, 
confined  to  a  realization  of  the  pain-suggesting 
idea,  and  the  direction  of  vengeful  impulses 
against  the  offender,  while  the  consequences  or 
ends  of  conduct  in  no  way  determine  the  judg- 
ment. The  particular  idiocy  of  the  anti- vivisec- 
tion agitation  is  obvious.  We  are  here,  of  course, 
purposely  considering,  not  actual  and  arbitrary 
morality,  but  the  essentials  upon  which  all 
moralities  are  based.  We  shall  deal  more  fully 
as  we  proceed  with  those  psychic  and  emotional 
factors  which  do,  in  fact,  colour  and  distort  all 
moral  values.  To  return  to  our  analogy — ^we 
may  say  then,  that  a  conventional  moral  rule 
stands  for  the  credit  of  national  morality,  much 
as  a  five-pound  note  stands  for  the  credit  of 
national  wealth. 

However  wise  a  code  of  morality  may  be,  it  is 
necessarily  artificial.  It  has  grown  up  to  suit  the 
peculiar  circumstances  and  demands  of  race, 
climate  and  time.  The  basic  reason  for  its 
existence  is  too  often  encrusted  and  disguised 
by  fears,   superstitions  and  illusions,   perpetual 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  85 

creatures  of  the  human  mind  ;  the  essentials  are 
often  lost  sight  of  or  forgotten,  and  Truth  is 
parodied  as  the  principle  that  gave  birth  to  the 
ecclesiastical  chimera  which  forms  the  edifice  of 
modern  cults.  Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  morality 
is  garbed  in  the  changing  coat  of  a  chameleon  ? 
That  what  is  held  moral  to-day  is  immoral  to- 
morrow, and  that  what  is  held  immoral  here  is 
moral  elsewhere  ? 

The  second  and  deeper  morality  concerns 
ourselves  only.  It  demands  an  answer  to  the 
eternal  question  :  What  is  the  Ultimate  Good  ? 
One  great  imperative  stands  out  pre-eminent : 
we  must  be  true  to  ourselves.  He  who  would 
seek  the  truth  must  himself  be  true.  Without 
truth  there  is  no  creation,  no  progress.  But 
before  we  can  be  true  to  ourselves,  we  must  know 
ourselves ;  that  is  the  problem  we  are  considering 
— ^knowledge  of  the  ego. 

Some  men  are  content  to  supply  synonyms  for 
the  Ideal — for  Perfection,  the  goal  of  endeavour 
— ^imagining  they  are  thereby  showing  the  way. 
Others  realize  the  first  task  must  be  to  cleanse 
the  way  of  the  inadequacies  and  perversions 
which  masquerade  as  the  whole  Truth,  as  the 
"  word  of  God." 

The  Ultimate  Good  cannot  be  translated 
into  the  petty  codes  of  human  convenience, 
neither  can  it  be  deduced  from  the  wanton 
phantoms  of  man's  wild  fancy,  called  religion, 
which,  by  attempting  to  expound  everything, 
explains  nothing. 


36  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

What  is  religion  ?  Is  it  the  search  for  truth  ? 
Is  it  not  an  attempt  to  clothe  our  conception  of 
the  Infinite  in  terms  finite  ? — the  result  being 
grotesque,  bearing  no  relation  to  existence,  a 
lawless  chimera,  bom  of  man's  dread  of  the 
unknown,  an  amorphous  fantasy  fashioned  out 
of  the  distorted  visions  of  man's  hopes  and  fears, 
modelled,  amended  and  shaped  in  course  of  time 
in  accordance  with  the  postulate  of  man's  nature 
— man  the  religious  animal ! 

Science  cannot  give  us  the  whole  truth  and  admits 
it !  "  Absolute  beginnings  or  origins  are  beyond 
the  pale  of  science."  *  But  rehgion  professes  to 
know  and  is  disproved  at  every  step.  It  is  when 
Religion  refuses  to  learn  that  she  is  harmful; 
because  her  values  are  false  and  her  thought  retro- 
spective that  she  is  inadequate.  It  is  not  because 
the  religions  of  the  past  and  their  legacies  to-day 
cannot  prove  the  Transcendent  that  they  should 
be  discarded,  but  because  they  attempt  to  prove 
it  and  turn  the  world  into  chaos  in  so  doing. 
It  is  not  only  because,  in  the  words  of  Huxley, 
"  everywhere  priests  have  broken  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  tried  to  stop  human  progress  by 
quotations  from  their  Bibles  or  books  of  their 
Saints,"  that  the  old  religion  is  outgrown,  but 
because  it  is  daily  growing  more  and  more  im- 
potent. 

Whether  for  good  or  evil  the  influence  of  re- 
ligion on  the  conduct  of  men  daily  grows  less. 
Religious  fanaticism  is  gradually  giving  place  to 

•  Professor  J.  Ward. 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  37 

secular  and  political  fanaticism,  whose  votaries 
shriek  in  the  name  of  Democracy,  Socialism  or 
other  watchword  of  Utopia,  ever  attempting  to 
impose  new  moral  values  bearing  as  little  corre- 
spondence to  reality  as  the  old  values.  Neither  can 
recent  attempts  to  express  the  old  religion  in  terms 
of  modern  thought  revive  that  which  is  perishing 
of  inanition.  Huxley  wrote  thus  of  the  attempt : 
"  If  the  religion  of  the  present  differs  from  that 
of  the  past,  it  is  because  the  theology  of  the 
present  has  become  more  scientific  than  that  of 
the  past,  not  because  it  has  renounced  idols  of 
wood  and  idols  of  stone,  but  begins  to  see  the 
necessity  of  breaking  in  pieces  the  idols  built  up 
of  hooks  and  traditions,  and  fine-spun  ecclesiastical 
cobwebs,  and  of  cherishing  the  noblest  and  most 
human  of  man's  emotions  by  worship,  *  for  the 
most  part  of  the  Silent  Sort,'  at  the  altar  of  the 
unknown  and  unknowable.  ..." 

We  have  no  desire  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  an 
unprovoked  attack  on  the  churches,  our  con- 
cern is  the  defence  of  a  rational,  against  the 
imposition  of  an  irrational,  code  of  morality. 

But  ethical  systems  are  still  built  upon  the 
fantastical  dogmas  of  religious  or  political  vision- 
aries. "  Ethics,"  say  the  former,  *'  cannot  be 
built  securely  upon  anything  less  than  the 
Religious  Sanctions."  The  rules  which  govern 
the  practical  conduct  of  life  must  conform  to 
"  divine  laws  "  which  in  their  interpretation  have 
passed  through  a  metamorphosis  as  varied  and 
dissimilar  as  the  habits  and  customs  which  dis- 


88  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

tinguish  the  twentieth  century  from  the  second  ! 
Was  it  a  sign  of  the  security  and  infalHbihty  of 
ethics  founded  on  rehgious  beHefs  that  Christian 
England  as  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century  *  sanctioned  the  execution  and  torture 
of  harmless  old  women  for  the  imaginary  crime 
of  witchcraft  ?  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
moral  code  of  the  period,  enforced  by  the  laws 
of  the  land,  reflected  contemporary  religious 
thought.  Lecky,  referring  to  the  causes  upon 
which  witchcraft  depended,  says  :  "j*  "It  resulted, 
not  from  accidental  circumstances,  individual 
eccentricities,  or  even  scientific  ignorance,  but 
from  a  general  predisposition  to  see  Satanic 
agency  in  life.  It  grew  from,  and  it  reflected,  the 
prevailing  modes  of  religious  thought ;  and  it 
declined  only  when  those  modes  were  weakened 
or  destroyed." 

The  fact  is,  as  most  impartial  students  of  psy- 
chology admit,  that  both  religious  and  political 
ethics  owe  far  more  of  their  character  to  the 
"  emotional  cravings "  combined  with  the  in- 
terested propaganda  current  in  the  age,  than  to 
any  real  value  they  may  possess  from  a  utilitarian 
or,  assimiing  the  Divinity  to  be  rational,  from  a 
Divine  point  of  view.  Ibsen  has  truly  said  that 
moral  values  are  dependent  on  power-conditions  ; 
morals,  politics  and  law  are  to  a  great  extent 
shaped  and  propelled  by  might-conditions,  by  the 
fancied  needs  and  interests  of  dominant  classes ; 

*  The  last  execution  for  witchcraft  is  believed  to  have  taken  place 
in  Scotland  in  1722.     See  Lecky's  "  Rationalism,"  15th  edition,  p.  185. 
t  Op.  dt.,  p.  82. 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  39 

but  the  greatest  factor  in  power-condition  is 
psychic ;  the  greatest  world-propellant,  the  ultima 
vires,  is  more  mind  than  muscle ;  it  is  this  great 
world  force  which  I  have  spoken  of  as  Cosmic 
Suggestion.*  Too  little  may  yet  be  known  of 
this  force  to  trace  its  means  of  transmission,  but 
the  reality  of  its  existence  can  no  longer  be 
doubted.  It  has  been  described  in  the  following 
way  :  there  exists  an  effluence  or  force  generated 
by,  or  resulting  from,  the  molecular  activity  of 
each  individual  brain.  These  forces  are  con- 
stantly influencing  the  souls  of  men,  encountering, 
overcoming,  and  repelling  opposition,  and  re- 
acting upon  the  conscious  intelligence  of  the 
authors  of  their  generation ;  or  they  may  unite 
themselves  into  groups  and  operate  collectively, 
forming  a  psychic  stream  of  power.*!* 

The  fact  of  this  power  must  be  received  into  the 
monistic  system  as  part  of  the  one  great  law.  A 
purely  materialistic  monism  cannot  contain  it. 
Though  we  postulate  a  single  law  with  a  dual 
aspect  or  duaUty  within  imity,  whatever  hy- 
pothesis we  assume  will  be  of  less  importance 
than  the  discovery  and  co-ordination  of  the 
invariable  laws  of  its  operation.  We  accept  the 
principle  of  "  monism  "  not,  I  fancy,  because  we 
are  compelled  to  do  so  by  the  logic  of  Haeckel, 
the  great  exponent  of  modem  monism,  or  of  his 
fellow- scientists,  but  because  we  are  driven  to  do 
so  without  their  help.     The  principle  of  oneness 

*  See  definition  in  Preface. 

t  This  description  with  a  shght  variation  is  taken  from  "Ibsen's 
Quintessence." 


40  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

and  unity,  alone,  is  capable  of  satisfying  our 
intellect,  our  sense  of  order  and  logic.  There 
cannot  be  conflicting  truths  ;  there  cannot  exist 
true  systems  which  disprove  each  other ;  all 
knowledge  is  complementary  ;  there  cannot  be 
true  objective  facts  and  equally  true  subjective 
ideals  which  contradict  them ;  otherwise  the 
world  is  chaos  and  there  is  no  reality.  But  if  we 
know  anything  we  know  that  matter  is  real  and 
thought  is  real,  and  the  law  of  their  inter-relation- 
ship is  within  the  same  reality.  No  common- 
place of  science  is  more  widely  known  or  more 
firmly  established  than  the  law  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy  or  of  the  persistence  of  force  and  of 
matter,  which  Haeckel  calls  the  law  of  substance. 
Can  we  be  content  to  believe  that  no  force  exists 
that  is  not  susceptible  to  physical  analysis  ? 
Or  does  the  first  step  towards  the  elucidation  of 
the  ultimate  and  unsolved  riddle  of  existence,  that 
is,  the  real  character  of  substance  or  the  cosmos, 
lie  (as  we  believe)  in  the  direction  of  reconciling 
the  metaphysical  with  the  monistic  system  ? 

We  seek  no  escape  from  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  one  universal  law  which  determines  all 
matter,  life  and  energy ;  but  our  monism  must 
comprise  the  psychic  factor.  For  us  this  cannot 
be  stated  in  physiological  terms.  Force  cannot 
be  regarded  as  a  pure  attribute  of  matter.  Recent 
advances  in  psychological  research  appear  to 
endorse  this  view.  It  is,  in  any  case,  less  im- 
portant to  insist  upon  one  particular  hypothesis, 
when  much,  at  the  present  stage  of  knowledge, 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  41 

is  insoluble,  than  to  appreciate  by  observation 
and  introspection  the  laws  that  appear  to  evolve 
from  it. 

Haeckel  cannot  conceive  mind  apart  from 
matter  or,  conversely,  protoplasm  without  mind 
(for  him  they  develop  concurrently) ;  yet  why 
should  the  fact  that  both  are  subject  to  the  same 
cosmic  law  invalidate  the  idea  of  the  persistency 
of  an  immaterial  force,  which  may  even  under 
certain  conditions,  or  metamorphoses,  break  the 
partnership  with  matter  ;  provided  that  the  unit 
of  psychic  force  is  in  itself  immaterial  ?*  This 
psychic  unit  Haeckel  terms  psychoplasm,  that 
is,  the  materialistic  basis  of  mind  in  protoplasm. 
The  laws  of  psychic  phenomena,  however,  only 
appear  intelligible  when  we  concede  that  the 
psychoplasm  possesses  an  immaterial  aspect 
which,  at  a  certain  stage  of  development,  may 
persist  as  "  force,"  even  after  the  disintegration 
of  matter  into  its  chemical  components.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  may,  below  a  certain  stage 
of  development  or  intensity,  lose  cohesion  and 
dissipate ;     organic    matter,    however,    is    never 

*  It  may  be  objected  that  the  idea  of  the  conservation  of  the  psyche 
is  only  intelligible  on  the  assumption  of  a  pre-somatic,  as  well  as 
a  post-somatic  existence,  or  that  it  necessarily  involves  some  form  of 
transmigration.  In  place  of  any  theory  of  the  soul's  preformation,  I 
would  prefer  to  view  the  origin  of  the  soul  as  bearing  relation  to  the 
epigenesis  of  the  organic  germ,  bearing  in  mind  that  the  organism  is 
but  the  medium  of  the  soul's  activity  and  avoiding  all  dogmatism 
on  the  question  of  its  ultimate  destination.  We  should,  however, 
remember,  as  Professor  Ward  points  out,  before  we  apply  the  formulae 
of  physical  science  to  the  realm  of  spiritual  ends,  of  this  fundamental 
difference  :  "  Individuality  is  inseparable  from  mind  and  altogether 
foreign  to  matter,  which  loses  nothing  by  disintegration  and  gains 
nothing  by  integration."     ("  Realm  of  Ends,"  p.  279.) 


42  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

without  it.  The  wonderful  discoveries  of  recent 
psychological  research,  especially  in  the  depart- 
ment of  hypnotism,  in  the  facts  of  memory  and 
above  all  in  the  evidence  lately  forthcoming  of 
the  existence  of  telepathy,  should  encourage  us  to 
adopt  a  hypothesis  which,  to  the  materialistic 
philosopher,  appears  chimerical.*  A  final  de- 
cision of  the  ultimate  problem  remains  at  present 
imattainable,  its  discussion  is  therefore  of  neces- 
sity speculative  in  character.  But  the  need  for 
recognizing  the  existence  of  a  psychic  factor, 
whose  phenomena  cannot  be  reconciled  on  a 
materialistic  basis,  makes  its  inclusion  in  the 
cosmic  system  imperative.  This  need  is  the 
greater  in  view  of  the  tendency  amongst  an  ever- 
increasing  class  to  relegate  all  psychic  pheno- 
mena to  the  chaotic  realms  of  emotional  thought, 
resulting  in  the  propagation  of  the  wildest  fana- 
ticism under  such  titles  as  Spiritualism,  Christian 
Science  or  Theosophism. 

There  are  two  modes  of  thought  and  they  lead 
in  opposite  directions  :  emotional  assumption 
and  analytical  investigation ;  the  two  systems 
are  illustrated  by  the  world  phenomenon  of 
religious  beliefs  arising  from  a  common  source, 
and  in  their  development  splitting  up,  breaking 
away  and  variating,  whilst  all  scientific  knowledge 
unifies  and  becomes  reconciled  during  its  progress, 
all  laws  eventually  resolving  themselves  into  one. 
It  is  often  said,  and  it  is  well  to  remember, 
that  no  system  of  human  belief  is  without  some 

*  See  McDougall's  "  Body  and  Mind,"  2nd  edition,  p.  349. 


RELIGION  AND  MORALITY  48 

fact  to  sustain  it.  But  when  the  great  variety  of 
antagonistic  behefs  that  have  sprung  from  differ- 
ent conceptions  of  the  same  facts  are  taken  into 
account,  one  must  reaUze,  as  too  few  educa- 
tionahsts  do,  that  the  value  of  human  opinions 
and  behefs  depends  far  more  on  habits  of  mind 
and  methods  of  assimilation  than  on  the  ultimate 
facts  on  which  they  are  based,  or  the  conviction 
with  which  they  are  held. 

There  are  many  people  so  ignorant  of  human 
nature  and  psychological  fact  that  they  imagine 
the  truth  of  a  statement  may  be  demonstrated 
by  the  credulity  with  which  it  has  been  received, 
forgetting  that  faith  fills  the  void  of  ignorance 
where  scepticism  is  reserved  for  new  ideas. 

So  long  as  education  comprises  the  inculcation 
of  beliefs  founded  on  emotional  assumption  (it 
should  be  clear  to  any  one  who  thinks  on  the 
subject  that  few  beliefs  outside  the  analytical 
and  exact  sciences  are  logically  reasoned  out  from 
fundamental  principles)  and  the  facile  repetition 
of  archaisms  is  appraised  as  intellectual  thought ; 
in  short,  so  long  as  our  methods  are  retrospective 
rather  than  critical,  emotion  and  fanaticism  will 
triumph  over  reason. 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  AND 
"  SUBJECTIVE  MIND  " 

It  has  long  been  recognized  that  ideas  rule  the 
world,  and  that  Power  is  the  translation  of  ideas 
into  material  force,  but  the  real  nature  of  world 
forces  and  the  elementary  laws  of  their  opera- 
tion have  been  obscured  by  superstition  and 
prejudice,  and  little  attempt  has  been  made  to 
recognize  their  true  significance. 

The  great  world  war  has  indeed  emphasized 
the  immense  power  of  ideas.  We  hear  much  of 
propaganda  and  ideals.  In  medicine  we  hear 
more  of  "  psychotherapy,"  or  the  treatment  of 
disease  by  persuasive  and  hypnotic  methods. 
We  are  aware,  too,  that  our  merchants  have  long 
known  the  practical  and  tangible  value  of  adver- 
tisement, that  is,  the  insistent  repetition  of  a 
coloured  statement  until  it  is  believed  to  be  true, 
and  that  our  priests,  teachers  and  politicians 
have  for  centuries  relied  on  this  method  alone. 
But  for  the  most  part  these  people  have  little  real 
knowledge  or  understanding  of  the  power  they 
are  using,  and  of  which  they  are  themselves  the 
mere  puppets.  A  supreme  illustration  is  the  real 
impotence  of  the  various  belligerent  governments 

44 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  45 

to  direct  or  cope  with  the  immeasurable  psychic 
forces  now  pursuing  their  cataclysmic  course,  and 
their  inability  to  foretell  the  direction  in  which  they 
are  leading  a  bewildered  world.  Nowhere  is  this 
more  graphically  apparent  than  in  Russia,  whose 
kaleidoscopic  upheavals  have  baffled  all  prophets. 

I  do  not  suggest  that  the  causal  origin  of  the 
European  War  is  purely  psychic  in  character,  it 
may  with  greater  certainty  be  found  years  before 
its  disastrous  developments,  in  the  steadily  in- 
creasing pressure  of  population,  assisted  by  the 
gradual  elimination  of  the  natural  checks*  among 
the  indigent  and  unfit|  and  the  proportionate 
increase  in  the  burdens  of  the  fit,  due  chiefly  to 
the  growth  of  democratic  ideas  and  trend  of 
religious  influences ;  this  pressure  found  ex- 
pression in  policies  of  expansion  among  the  more 
prolific  nations,  and  in  the  case  of  Germany, 
where  relief  could  not  adequately  be  found  in 
colonization,  as  a  natural  consequence  engendered 
assiduous  military  and  belHcose  propaganda,  which 
was  bound  eventually  to  culminate  in  a  world  war. 

In  order  to  facilitate  a  brief  analysis  of  mob- 
psychology  and  public  opinion,  and  to  examine 
their   rightful   place   in   the   science   of  psycho- 

*  The  principal  checks  to  population  enumerated  by  Malthus  were 
normally :  vice,  misery  and  ceUbacy  or  moral  restraint,  and  such 
occasional  resorts  of  nature  to  repress  a  too  redundant  population 
(an  evil  aggravated  considerably  in  countries  where  population  is 
forced  to  the  limits  of  its  means  of  subsistence  by  poor-laws  and  grants 
in  aid  of  families),  as  wars  and  famine. 

t  The  "  unfit "  denotes  the  diseased,  criminals,  paupers  and  lunatics. 
See  "  The  Fertility  of  the  Unfit,"  by  W.  A.  Chappie,  for  an  able  ex- 
position of  the  economic  causes  underlying  the  alarming  increase  in  the 
unfit  population. 


46  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

dynamics  and  their  relation  to  the  hypnotic 
"  law  of  suggestion,"  I  have  introduced  the  term 
Cosmic  Suggestion.  There  are  few  thinkers  who 
would  attempt  to  deny  that  the  same  factors, 
processes  and  influences  are  observable  in  the 
formation  of  all  classes  of  opinion,  whether  they 
are  called  rehgious,  moral,  political  or  artistic. 
It  is,  unfortunately,  equally  evident  that  reason, 
except  in  the  case  of  scientific  opinion,  usually 
plays  the  smaller  and  emotion  and  desire  the 
greater  part  in  their  formation.  We  say  that  this 
is  unfortunate  because  emotion  never  brings  us 
nearer  the  truth.  Poets  and  ecstatic  visionaries 
have  sung  the  praises  of  emotion  because  to  them 
emotion  alone  was  real  and  the  normal  medium  of 
truth.  On  the  other  hand  the  investigator  is 
bound  to  arrive  at  a  different  conclusion.  "  Emo- 
tion "  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  attain- 
ment of  truth.  That  which  we  prize  under  the 
name  of  "  emotion  "  is  an  elaborate  activity  of 
the  brain,  which  consists  of  feehngs  of  like  and 
dislike,  motions  of  assent  and  dissent,  impulses  of 
desire  and  aversion.  It  may  be  influenced  by  the 
most  diverse  activities  of  the  organism,  by  the 
cravings  of  the  senses  and  the  muscles,  the 
stomach,  the  sexual  organs,  etc.  The  interests 
of  truth  are  far  from  promoted  by  these  condi- 
tions and  vacillations  of  emotion ;  on  the  con- 
trary, such  circumstances  often  disturb  that 
reason  which  alone  is  adapted  to  the  pursuit 
of  truth,  and  frequently  mar  its  perceptive 
power.    No  cosmic  problem   is  solved,  or  even 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  47 

advanced,  by  the  cerebral  function  we  call 
emotion."* 

From  the  earliest  times  shrewd  observers  have 
commented  on  the  ease  with  which  the  passions 
of  men  are  inflamed  and  united,  often  by  the 
least  worthy  of  objects.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
describing  the  progress  of  an  agitator  bidding 
for  adherence,  tersely  remarks,  "  ale  and  clamour 
unite  their  powers,  the  crowd,  condensed  and 
heated,  begins  to  ferment  with  the  leaven  of 
sedition."  "f 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  may  be  well  to 
make  a  brief  examination  of  the  hypothesis  most 
in  accord  with  the  results  of  recent  psychological 
research  and  ascertainable  fact. 

It  has  gradually  come  to  be  recognized  in 
scientific  circles  that  recent  advances  in  psycho- 
logy have  made  it  impossible  to  pursue  that 
science  any  longer  entirely  on  a  physiological, 
anatomical  and  histological  basis.  It  is  now 
also  hardly  likely  to  be  disputed  that  not  only 
is  consciousness  not  the  sum  total  of  man's 
psychic  activities  but  that  the  greater  part  of 
them  are  subconscious  or  unconscious.  Thus, 
according  to  Professor  James  Ward,  "  our 
threshold  of  consciousness  must  be  compared  to 
the  surface  of  a  lake,  and  subconsciousness  to  the 
depths  beneath  it,  and  all  the  current  terminology 
of  presentations  rising  and  sinking  impUes  this 
or  some  similar  figure." 

*  E.  Haeckel,  "  Riddle  of  the  Universe." 

t  "  The  False  Alarm,"  a  pamphlet  on  the  Middlesex  election  of  1770. 


48  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

Another  writer  in  a  recent  publication  makes 
use  of  an  analogous  illustration  by  describing 
human  personality  as  an  iceberg,  the  great 
bulk  of  which  is  always  invisible  and  sub- 
merged.* 

The  matter  is  further  complicated  by  the  fact 
that  within  the  domain  of  the  subconscious  there 
exists  a  vitality  which  cannot  be  traced  to  a 
cerebral  or  somatic  source.  Stated  in  broad 
terms  it  may  be  said  that  mind,  or  the  sum  total 
of  Personality,  must  be  viewed  in  two  inter- 
actionary  aspects  :  the  primary  consciousness 
and  secondary  consciousness,  or  the  conscious 
and  the  subconscious  or  subliminal  or  (in  a 
special  sense)  subjective,  according  to  the  various 
terms  used  by  different  writers  to  express  the 
same  thing. 

For  the  purpose  of  greater  lucidity,  it  has 
usually  been  found  that  this  dual  aspect  of  mind 
can  be  best  expressed  by  treating  the  whole 
mental  organization  as  consisting  of  two  minds, 
each  endowed  with  separate  and  distinct  attri- 
butes and  powers ;  each  capable,  under  certain 
conditions,  of  independent  action.  It  may  be 
that  a  truer  idea  would  be  conveyed  if  the  mind- 
whole  was  described  as  possessing  certain  attri- 
butes and  powers  under  some  conditions,  and 
certain  other  attributes  and  powers  xinder  other 
conditions.  As  my  object,  here,  is  to  enter  no 
further  into  psychological  questions  than  is 
necessary   for   the   elucidation   of  those   ethical 

*  "  The  Purpose  of  Education  "  (1915),  by  St.  George  Lane  Fox-Pitt. 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  49 

considerations  which  are  dependent  upon  them, 
I  shall  give  a  short  account  of  those  theories 
which,  in  the  light  of  present  knowledge,  appear 
best  founded  and  afford  most  assistance  in 
connexion  with  the  subject  of  morality. 

Thomas  J.  Hudson,  whose  hypothesis  I  shall 
make  use  of  to  illustrate  my  meaning,  assumed 
for  practical  purposes  that  man  has  two  minds. 
In  making  use  to  some  extent  of  Hudson's  theory, 
I  do  so  not  because  it  is  necessarily  correct,  for 
his  hypothesis  was,  admittedly,  to  a  certain 
extent  provisional ;  but  because  it  was  the  first 
practical  working  hypothesis  on  which  all  psychic 
and  hypnotic  phenomena  could  be  based,  and 
because  it  has  largely  been  used  as  a  basis  for 
subsequent  elaborations. 

In  1892,  Hudson,  in  his  "  Law  of  Psychic 
Phenomena,"  said :  "  In  more  recent  years  the 
doctrine  of  duality  of  mind  is  beginning  to  be 
more  clearly  defined,  and  it  may  now  be  said  to 
constitute  a  cardinal  principle  in  the  philosophy 
of  many  of  the  ablest  exponents  of  the  new 
psychology."  To-day  when  psychotherapeutics 
have  claimed  the  attention  of  students  of  patho- 
logy, and  when  at  last  the  medical  profession 
has  almost  throughout  enlisted  the  co-operation 
and  help  of  hypnotism,  there  are  far  fewer  people 
who  would  deny  the  existence  of  that  substratum 
of  consciousness,  distinct  from  the  manifestation 
of  the  normal  waking  mind,  which  is  so  profitably 
studied  in  the  phenomena  of  somnambulism,  hyp- 
notism and  lunacy. 


50  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

The  briefest  statement  of  the  sahent  features 
of  Hudson's  hypothesis  will  suffice  to  enable  me 
to  suggest  the  irresistible  conclusion  that  the 
prime  factor  in  the  formation  of  all  opinion, 
collective  and  individual,  the  chief  determinant 
of  conduct,  and  the  greatest  motive  force  in  the 
world,  is  analogous  and  co-relative  to  hypnotic 
suggestion. 

Hudson  was  the  first  to  attempt  a  clear  defini- 
tion of  the  role  and  nature  of  the  two  elements 
which  constitute  the  dual  mind.  For  the  sake  of 
greater  clearness  he  speaks  of  these  two  aspects  of 
mind  as  though  they  were  two  minds,  possessing 
distinctive  characteristics  and  a  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  the  two,  clearly  defined.  To  con- 
tinue in  his  own  words  :  "  Their  functions  are 
essentially  unlike  ;  each  is  endowed  with  separate 
and  distinct  attributes  and  powers ;  and  each  is 
capable,  under  certain  conditions  and  limitations, 
of  independent  action."  The  author  then  dis- 
tinguishes the  two  by  designating  the  one  objec- 
tive and  the  other  subjective.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  he  makes  use  of  a  nomenclature  in  which 
these  terms  are  slightly  perverted  from  their 
legitimate  meaning,  or  perhaps,  as  he  expresses 
it,  modified  and  extended,  but  since  he  prefers 
to  use  them  rather  than  attempt  to  coin  new  ones, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  employ  them  with  reference 
to  his  law  ;  in  every  case  in  which  these  designa- 
tions are  employed  in  conjunction  with  the  word 
mind,  or  printed  in  italics,  they  will  be  used  in 
this  sense. 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  51 

They  are  defined  thus  :  "  The  objective  mind 
takes  cognizance  of  the  objective  world.  Its 
media  of  observation  are  the  five  physical  senses. 
It  is  the  outgrowth  of  man's  physical  neces- 
sities. .  .  .  Its  highest  function  is  that  of  rea- 
soning." *  In  other  words,  the  objective  mind 
functionates  from  the  brain  and  is  susceptible  of 
anatomical  localization,  whilst  "  the  subjective 
mind  takes  cognizance  of  its  environment  by 
means  independent  of  the  physical  senses.  It 
perceives  by  intuition.  ...  It  performs  its 
highest  functions  when  the  objective  senses  are 
in  obeyance.  In  a  word,  it  is  that  intelligence 
which  makes  itself  manifest  in  a  hypnotic  subject 
when  he  is  in  a  state  of  somnambulism."! 

Whether  we  call  it  soul  or  subjective  mind 
matters  not ;  what  matters  is  the  fact  that  in  all 
psychic  phenomena  there  is  sufficient  evidence  to 
show  that  the  two  aspects  of  mind  interact 
according  to  certain  observable  principles.  The 
main  principle  affecting  man's  mental  organiza- 
tion on  which  Hudson  builds  his  hypothesis  is  the 
Law  of  Suggestion,  first  discovered  by  Liebeault, 
the  founder  of  the  Nancy  School  of  hypnotism, 
during  his  researches  in  1866.  It  is  this :  that 
hypnotic  subjects  are  constantly  amenable  to  the 
power  of  suggestion.  This  proposition  may  be 
said  to  have  been  demonstrated  as  true  beyond 
all  possibility  of  doubt. 

Starting   with   this   discovery,    Hudson,    after 

*  "  Psychic  Phenomena,"  by  I.  J.  Hudson,  p.  29. 
t  Ibid. 


52  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

defining  the  dual  character  of  mind,  introduces 
two  propositions,  namely  :  that  the  subjective 
mind  is  constantly  amenable  to  control  by 
suggestion,  and  that  the  subjective  mind  is 
incapable  of  inductive  reasoning.  Man  in  hyp- 
notic state  has  invariably  given  sufficient  evidence 
to  show  that  the  subjective  mind  accepts,  without 
hesitation  or  doubt,  every  statement  that  is 
made  to  it. 

With  regard  to  this  Law  of  Suggestion  it  is 
well  to  remember  that,  while  the  subjective 
mind  is  invariably  and  constantly  swayed  by 
suggestion,  and  is  capable  of  offering  no  resistance 
except  that  which  has  been  communicated  to  it 
by  the  objective  mind,  or  which  is  inherent  in  its 
nature,  the  objective  mind,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  peipetually  assailed  by  extrinsic  suggestion,  its 
capacity  for  resistance  being  in  proportion  to  the 
dominant  quality  and  development  of  the  mind- 
whole. 

The  objective  mind,  it  will  therefore  be  seen, 
is  potentially  selective,  that  is  to  say,  the  measure 
of  its  quality  is  its  capacity  to  select  at  will 
intellectual  nourishment  from  the  whole  range  of 
humanity  and  nature,  free  from  the  oppression 
of  its  psychic  environment.  The  rare  combina- 
tion of  this  intellectual  fastidiousness  with  a 
super-sensibility  is  the  mark  of  true  genius. 

Every  one  is  conscious  that  at  times  we  become 
aware  of  impulses,  inclinations  and  concepts 
which  seem  to  form  no  part  of  our  thinking  or 
waking  minds;    they  seem   to    come   from    the 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  53 

depths  of  our  souls  in  response  to  some  vital 
need  of  our  existence.  When  the  tendency 
appears  to  be  hereditary  we  call  these  promptings 
instincts*  and  consider  it  right  to  suppress  them 
or  hold  them  in  check.  We  do  not  resign  our- 
selves wholesale  to  unbridled  licentiousness  or 
anger  because  the  reproductive  instinct  and 
pugnacity  are  inherent  in  our  nature;  on  the 
contrary,  we  realize  that  our  best  interests  lie  in 
self-control.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  impulse 
is  less  easily  accoiuited  for,  if,  maybe,  the  message 
of  our  souls  runs  counter  to  our  normal  instincts, 
our  interests  or  reason,  we  are  apt  to  assume  that 
the  impulse  emanates  from  outside  our  nature 
and  must  have,  many  of  us  think,  a  supernatural 
or  Divine  origin. 

It  may  be  said  then  that  most  people  distin- 
guish "  good  "  and  "  bad  "  impulses,  or  impulses 
which  must  be  inhibited  and  impulses  which 
should  be  followed  at  all  costs. 

Theology,  as  taught  in  the  Simday  School, 
treats  the  subject  somewhat  after  this  fashion ; 
"  All  mortals  are  assailed  by  the  powers  of  Good 
and  Evil ;  the  vehicle  of  the  Divine  Will  is 
*  Conscience,'  the  voice  of  conscience  is  the 
voice  of  God  within  us.  Beware  of  the  World, 
the  Flesh  and  the  Devil ;    the  Devil  calls  to  his 

*  Instinct  in  its  more  technical  use  denotes  any  inherited  tendency 
to  perform  a  specific  action  in  a  specific  way  when  the  appropriate 
situation  occurs.  In  this  use  instinct  should  be  discriminated  from 
impulse,  which  may  be  (1)  the  sensation  or  feeling  which  prompts 
an  instinctive  action,  (2)  a  similar  prompting  to  an  action  which  is 
not  instinctive  in  the  narrower  sense,  or  which  is  characteristic  of 
an  individual  only  and  not  of  a  group. — Webster's  Dictionary. 


54  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

victims  in  the  guise  of  the  flesh."  This  idea  is 
exploited  for  all  it  is  worth  in  conjunction  with 
the  doctrine  of  original  sin  :  the  stock  device  of 
priestcraft  to  enhance  the  value  of  its  own 
ministrations  and  sacraments.  The  spiritual 
teacher  will  usually  "  bring  the  lesson  home  " 
by  a  vivid  description  of  the  habits  and  idiosyn- 
crasies of  a  Mephistophelian  Devil  with  a  par- 
ticular liability  to  appropriate  the  "  laws  of  our 
lower  nature  "  for  the  sole  purpose  of  baulking 
his  equally  anthropomorphic  antagonist,  the  God 
of  Jews  and  Christians,  whose  voice  may  be 
recognized  in  the  pangs  of  remorse  and  self- 
debasement.  A  child  subjected  to  this  form  of 
instruction  during  the  most  impressionable  period 
of  its  existence  is  usually  left  for  the  remainder 
of  its  life  with  a  vague  distrust  of  nature,  a  pro- 
portionate reverence  for  the  super-nsitural,  and  an 
impression  that  asceticism  is  the  highest  attain- 
able virtue,  together  with  a  totally  false  appre- 
ciation of  mental  phenomena  and  the  real  value 
of  self-control. 

Every  man  should  learn  to  know  himself  and 
seek  the  origin  of  his  impulses.  History  is  full 
of  examples  of  men  and  women  who  believed 
themselves  attended  by  guardian  angels  or  fami- 
liar spirits  who  prompted  their  actions  and  gave 
them  advice  ;  Socrates  was  constantly  attended 
by  his  daimones,  and  Joan  of  Arc  used  to  hear 
"  spirit  voices."  These  and  similar  cases  were 
evidence  of  the  predominance  of  the  subjective 
over  the  objective  mind.     In  a  normally  balanced 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  55 

mind  the  objective  is  in  control ;  in  the  reverse 
process  the  objective  mind  is  dormant  and  the 
subjective  dominates  the  throne  of  reason.  This 
is  the  case  in  dreams,  trance,  hypnosis  and 
cerebral  diseases.  It  is  also  the  case,  in  greater 
or  lesser  degree,  whenever  the  brain  is  stunned 
or  is  said  to  be  "  unbalanced  "  as  the  result  of 
great  emotional  excitement  or  shock.  It  is  then 
that  impulse  and  instinct  take  the  place  of,  or 
inhibit,  rational  thought.  Impulses  emanate 
from  the  subjective  mind,  and  may  result  from 
the  inherent  nature  and  real  character  of  the 
individual ;  or  they  may  reflect  the  autosugges- 
tions of  the  individual,  or  his  bodily  desires 
(this  may  be  termed  reflex-suggestion),  or  the 
suggestions  of  others ;  or,  again,  the  latter, 
acting  upon  the  subjective  mind,  may  awaken 
related  tendencies  or  inclinations  and  result  in 
new  complex  impulses.  Extreme  cases  of  sub- 
jective control  result  in  madness ;  the  false 
premises  conveyed  by  the  disordered  cerebral 
organs  must  result  in  deductions  by  the  sub- 
jective mind  of  equal  abnormality.  Control  by 
the  subjective  mind  nearly  always  produces  in 
the  subject  either  a  feeling  of  dual  personality, 
in  which  two  egos  are  realized,  each  distinct  from 
the  other — the  old  me  and  the  new  me — or  else 
the  subjective  mind  is  identified  with  a  totally 
distinct,  extrinsic  and  usually  superior  individual ; 
delusions  of  dual  personality  or  demoniacal  con- 
trol are  among  the  first  recognized  symptoms  of 
Cerebral    disease.      The    greatest    and    maddest 


56  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

fanatics  in  history  have  usually  attributed  their 
powers  to  spirit  control.  Poets  and  artists  have 
sometimes  confessed  that  their  most  brilliant 
work  was  produced  under  conditions  akin  to 
trance ;  in  some  cases — Coleridge  and  Edgar 
Allan  Poe  are  well-known  examples — the  state  was 
artificially  induced.  Many  have  felt  as  though 
they  were  possessed  by  a  mightier  spirit  than  their 
own,  which  dictated  while  they  merely  obeyed. 

Professor  William  James,  after  describing  de- 
lusions of  dual,  alternating  and  superimposed 
personality,  which  are  common  symptoms  of 
insanity,  continues  :  "  The  literature  of  insanity 
is  filled  with  narratives  of  such  illusions  as 
these.  .  .  .  One  patient  has  another  self  that 
repeats  all  his  thoughts  for  him.  Others,  among 
whom  are  some  of  the  first  characters  in  history, 
have  familiar  demons  who  speak  with  them, 
and  are  replied  to.  In  another,  some  one 
'  makes  '  his  thoughts  for  him.  Another  has  two 
bodies,  lying  in  different  beds.  Or  the  cries  of 
the  patient  himself  are  assigned  to  another  person 
with  whom  the  patient  expresses  sympathy."* 

If  Macaulay  is  right  in  the  following  passage, 
"  subjective  control "  would  appear  to  be  the 
essential  condition  for  the  production  of  poetry  : 
"  Perhaps  no  man  can  be  a  poet,  or  can  even 
enjoy  poetry,  without  a  certain  unsoundness  of 
mind — ^if  anjrthing  which  gives  so  much  pleasure 
ought  to  be  called  unsoimdness.  .  .  .  Truth, 
indeed,  is  essential  to  poetry,  but  it  is  the  truth 

*  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  377. 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  57 

of  madness.     The  reasonings  are  just,  but  the 
premises  are  false."  * 

Another  often  quoted  passage,  from  Caesar 
Lombroso's  "  Man  of  Genius,"  bears  out  the 
same  thing  :  "  Many  men  of  genius  who  have 
studied  themselves,  and  who  have  spoken  of 
their  inspiration,  have  described  it  as  a  sweet  and 
seductive  fever,  during  which  their  thought  had 
become  rapidly  and  involuntarily  fruitful,  and 
has  burst  forth  like  the  flame  of  a  lighted  torch." 
"  Kuh's  most  beautiful  poems,"  wrote  Bauer, 
"  were  dictated  in  a  state  between  sanity  and 
reason  ;  at  the  moment  when  his  sublime  thoughts 
came  to  him  he  was  incapable  of  simple  rea- 
soning." 

Not  the  least  remarkable  of  the  powers  of 
the  subjective  mind  is  its  apparently  absolute 
memory  ;  not  only  are  those  experiences  of  which 
we  have  objective  cognizance  indelibly  recorded, 
but  innumerable  occurrences  in  our  environment, 
which  pass  unnoticed  or  of  which  we  are  even 
consciously  unaware,  seem  to  be  registered  by  the 
subjective  mind.  Although  it  cannot  be  in- 
cluded in  the  term  memory,  implying  conscious 
memory,  we  have  good  reason  for  believing  that 
in  common  with  all  living  organisms  the  sub- 
jective mind  of  men  records  not  only  the  result 
of  its  own  experience,  but  also  is  impregnated 
by  those  experiences  of  its  ancestors  which  have 
been  transformed  into  habits  and  have  become 
innate,  and  that    by  this  means  only  progress 

*  Ex  "  Essay  on  Milton." 


58  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

and  evolution  are  capable  of  explanation.  This 
unconscious  register  of  ancestral  experience,  about 
which  we  shall  have  more  to  say  in  another 
chapter,  is  here  adduced  as  being  an  additional 
factor  which  must  have  considerable  bearing  on 
the  nature  of  subjective  impulses.  The  theories 
of  unconscious  and  of  "  organic  "  memories  * 
throw  a  great  deal  of  hght  on  the  transmission  of 
hereditary  characters  and  of  instincts.  The  very 
fact  of  the  appearance  of  hereditary  characteris- 
tics in,  for  example,  young  ducks  hatched  out 
by  a  hen,  who  persist  in  showing  their  ancestry 
by  making  for  the  first  pond  they  see  in  spite  of 
the  astonished  remonstrances  of  their  foster- 
mother,  points  to  race  memory  as  the  only 
solution. 

Telepathy  is  again  another  factor  in  connexion 
with  the  subjective  mind  which  must  be  taken 
into  account.  It  has  been  described  as  the 
normal  means  of  communication  between  sub- 
jective minds  en  rapport ;  the  possibilities  of  its 
influence  cannot  be  ignored.  Is  it  surprising, 
when  we  realize  the  range,  scope  and  complexity 
of  the  subconscious  intelligence  within  ourselves, 
that  its  emanations  are  sometimes  mistaken  for 
messages  from  another  world  ? 

This    brief    reference    to    some    of   the    more 

*  The  theory  was  developed  by  Professor  R.  Semon  of  Munich, 
in  1908,  who  used  the  word  "  engrams  "  for  "  organic  memories  "  ; 
quoted  by  Professor  J.  Ward  in  a  lecture  on  the  mnemic  theory,  entitled 
"  Heredity  and  Memory,"  delivered  at  Cambridge  in  1912  and  sub- 
sequently published.  Professor  Ward  considers  that  greater  emphasis 
should  be  laid  upon  the  psychic  than  upon  the  physical  impressions 
recorded  by  the  "  mind-stuff." 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  59 

noticeable  influences  which  affect  the  inherent 
character  of  the  subjective  mind  may  help  to 
indicate  the  importance  of  the  Law  of  Suggestion 
with  regard  to  the  theory  of  conscience  (literally 
self-knowledge — but  in  practice  more  often  lack 
of  self-knowledge).  This  law  can  be  most  pro- 
fitably studied  in  the  phenomena  of  hypnotism, 
for  the  reason  that  "  the  objective  mind,  or  let 
us  say  man  in  his  normal  condition,  is  not  con- 
trollable, against  reason,  positive  knowledge, 
or  the  evidence  of  his  senses,  by  the  suggestions 
of  another."  (We  have  discussed  his  potential 
capacity  for  resistance.)  "  The  subjective  mind, 
or  man  in  the  hypnotic  state,"  on  the  other  hand, 
"  is  unqualifiedly  and  constantly  amenable  to 
the  power  of  suggestion."*  In  this  condition 
the  subjective  mind  accepts  unhesitatingly  every 
statement  that  is  made  to  it,  no  matter  how 
absurd  or  incongruous  or  contrary  to  the  objec- 
tive experience  of  the  individual.  If  the  subject 
is  told  that  he  is  a  dog,  he  will  instantly  accept 
the  suggestion,  and  to  the  limit  of  physical 
possibility  act  the  part  suggested.  If  he  is  told 
he  is  Napoleon,  he  will  again  act  the  part  with 
wonderful  fidelity  to  life.  The  suggestion  of 
pursuing  devils  will  send  him  into  a  lively  terror. 
He  will  become  intoxicated  by  drinking  a  glass  of 
water  under  the  impression  that  it  is  brandy. 
If  told  he  is  suffering  from  a  high  fever,  his 
pulse  will  become  rapid,  his  face  flushed  and 
his  temperature  will  rise.     "  In  short,  he  can  be 

*  Hudson's  "  Psychic  Phenomena,"  p.  30. 


60  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

made  to  see,  smell,  hear,  or  feel  anything 
in  obedience  to  suggestion."  These  are  funda- 
mental facts  known  not  only  to  students  of 
hypnotism  but  also  very  extensively  to  the 
general  public. 

Equal  and  complementary  to  the  Law  of  Sug- 
gestion is  the  Law  of  Autosuggestion.  Having 
accepted  for  purposes  of  clarity  Hudson's  view 
of  the  independent  powers  and  functions  of  the 
two  aspects  of  mind,  it  naturally  follows  that  the 
subjective  mind  of  an  individual  is  as  amenable 
to  the  control  of  his  own  objective  mind  as  to 
the  objective  mind  of  another ;  in  fact  we  have 
sufficient  reason  to  know  that  it  is  more  so.  For 
instance,  it  is  well  known  that  a  normal  person 
cannot  be  hypnotized  against  his  will,  for  the 
contrary  autosuggestion  of  the  subject  negatives 
the  suggestion  of  the  operator.  Even  after  a 
subject  has  consented  to  be  hypnotized  the 
settled  habits  of  his  life  are  sufficiently  strong 
autosuggestions  to  defend  him  against  the  vio- 
lation of  his  most  tenacious  principles.  If,  for 
instance,  a  hypnotic  subject  is  conscientiously 
opposed  to  the  use  of  alcohol,  he  cannot  be  per- 
suaded to  drink  water  under  the  impression  that 
it  is  whisky.  This  fact  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance in  relation  to  criminology. 

In  this  connexion  the  following  passage  from 
Moll's  "  Hypnotism  "  is  of  interest :  "  The  more 
an  action  is  repulsive  to  the  disposition  [of  an 
individual],  the  stronger  is  his  resistance.  Habit 
and   education   play   a   large   part   here ;     it   is 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  61 

generally  very  difficult  to  suggest  anything  op- 
posed to  the  confirmed  habits  of  the  subject. 

"  For  instance,  suggestions  are  made  with 
success  to  a  devout  Catholic,  but  directly  the 
suggestion  conflicts  with  his  creed  it  will  not  be 
accepted.  The  surroundings  play  a  part  also. 
A  subject  will  frequently  decline  a  suggestion 
that  will  make  him  appear  ridiculous.  A  woman 
whom  I  easily  put  into  cateleptic  postures,  and 
who  made  suggested  movements,  could  not  be 
persuaded  to  put  out  her  tongue  at  the  spectators. 

"  It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  way  in  which 
resistance  is  expressed,  both  in  hypnotic  and 
post-hypnotic  suggestion.  I,  myself,  have  ob- 
served the  interesting  phenomenon  that  subjects 
have  asked  to  be  awakened  when  a  suggestion 
displeased  them."* 

It  is  a  fundamental  law  of  hypnotism  that  it 
cannot  be  used  as  an  agent  for  the  commission 
of  a  crime,  that  is,  unless  the  subject  is  criminally 
disposed.  It  is  obvious  that  the  same  rule 
applies  to  sexual  crimes  ;  Hudson  lays  it  down 
as  an  unassailable  fact  that  no  virtuous  woman 
ever  was,  or  ever  can  be,  successfully  assaulted 
while  in  a  hypnotic  condition. 

It  will  now  be  realized  that  autosuggestion 
embraces  not  only  the  assertions  of  the  objective 
mind  of  an  individual,  addressed  to  his  own 
subjective  mind,  but  also  his  habits  of  thought 
and  the  settled  principles  and  convictions  of  his 
whole   life.     The   more   intense   these   principles 

*  Op.  ct/.,  p.  129. 


62  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

and  convictions  are,  the  stronger  the  auto- 
suggestion will  be,  and  relatively  harder  to  be 
overcome  by  the  contrary  suggestions  of  another. 
It  is  a  law  of  universal  applicability  that  the 
strongest  suggestion  must  prevail. 

So  far  we  have  alluded  only  to  suggestion 
applied  during  hypnosis  ;  it  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  it  is  now  a  settled  principle  of 
psychotherapeutics  that  suggestion  also  operates, 
and  from  a  therapeutic  point  of  view  is  sometimes 
more  efficacious,  in  the  normal  waking  or  sleeping 
condition ;  though  in  the  latter  case,  without 
complete  amenability,  the  results  are  seldom  so 
striking.  The  condition  in  normal  waking  life 
which  produces  phenomena  most  closely  resem- 
bling those  of  hypnosis  is  that  of  strong  emotional 
excitement.  We  find,  also,  that  in  normal  life 
suggestions  of  the  greatest  potency  and  having 
the  most  far-reaching  effects  are  conveyed  by 
means  of  emotional  states.  Although  a  close 
resemblance  exists  between  the  result  of  sugges- 
tion in  hypnosis  and  the  result  of  suggestion  in 
normal  and  emotion  states,  similarity  of  result 
does  not,  as  Dr.  Bramwell  points  out  in  this 
connexion,  necessarily  imply  identity  of  cause. 
In  fact  there  are  some  important  differences 
between  the  two  conditions  which  produce  the 
phenomena,  as  well  as  some  distinctions  between 
the  phenomena  themselves  :  whereas  fear,  hope, 
faith,  religious  excitement  and  kindred  emotions 
are  almost  invariably  present  in  cases  which  are 
cited   as   analogous  to   hypnotic  ones,   some   of 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  63 

these,  such  as  fear  and  other  violent  emotions, 
effectually  preclude  the  production  of  hypnosis, 
and  further,  subjects  who  are  most  amenable  to 
emotional  suggestions  are  often  those  whom  it 
is  most  difficult  to  hypnotize.* 

The  principle  of  psychotherapeutics  depends, 
as  is  well  known,  upon  the  close  dependence  of 
the  organs  and  normal  bodily  functions  upon  the 
behests  of  the  mind.  Hudson  expresses  this  in 
the  form  of  a  proposition,  namely  :  "  The  sub- 
jective mind  has  absolute  control  of  the  functions, 
conditions  and  sensations  of  the  body."  Al- 
though this  statement  contains  a  very  important 
principle  we  should  not  allow  it  to  obscure  the 
fact  of  the  reverse  process.  As  James,  Bain  and 
others  have  shown,  antecedent  bodily  conditions 
often  react  directly  upon  the  mind.  The  general 
truth,  however,  of  the  proposition  may  be  readily 
preceived  when  we  remember  that  perfect  anaes- 
thesia can  be  produced  at  the  will  of  the  operator 
by  suggestion.  The  effect  of  mental  stimuli 
upon  functional  conditions  is  also  commonly 
observed  under  normal  conditions  in  such  pheno- 
mena as  blushing,  turning  pale,  the  quickening 
of  the  pulse,  fainting,  etc.,  all  of  which  should  be 
sufficient  to  convince  any  one  who  gives  the 
subject  a  moment's  consideration  of  the  very 
direct  and  instant  way  the  mind  affects  the  body. 

Several  typical  examples  of  the  influence  of 
autosuggestion,  or  imagination,  over  intestinal 
action  during  sleep  are  quoted  by  Bernheim  from 

*   Vide  Bram well's  "  Hypnotism,"  3rd  edition,  p.  334. 


64  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

the  "  Bibliotheque  choisie  de  Medecine."  They 
consist  for  the  most  part  of  recorded  cases  where, 
for  instance,  the  subjects,  having  registered  an 
intention  to  use  a  purgative  the  following  day, 
have  dreamt  during  the  night  with  particular 
vividness  that  the  dose  had  already  been  taken, 
with  the  result  that,  influenced  by  the  imaginary 
aperient,  they  had  awakened  to  yield  to  nature's 
demands,  with  the  same  result  as  if  the  dose  had 
already  been  taken. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer  to  another 
example  from  my  personal  experience  of  the 
potency  of  suggestion  in  affecting  functional 
disturbances  during  sleep.  During  my  first  week 
at  a  public  school,  the  dampness  of  the  new 
climate  brought  on  a  bad  attack  of  bronchial 
asthma,  which  I  had  not  been  troubled  with  for 
some  time  previously.  The  first  bad  attack 
occurred  at  night,  when  some  noise  had  caused 
me  to  wake  up.  When  I  had  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  look  at  the  time,  I  noticed  it  was  2  a.m. 
and  at  the  same  time  heard  the  school  clock 
faintly  striking  that  hour.  Fearing  and  half 
expecting  another  attack  the  next  night ;  I 
asked  that  asthma  powder  and  the  usual  remedies 
might  be  made  available  in  case  they  were  needed. 
That  night,  as  I  had  feared,  and  for  the  next  ten 
nights  in  succession,  I  woke  struggling  for  breath, 
precisely  on  the  first  stroke  of  the  school  clock 
striking  two,  and  experienced  the  worst  attacks 
I  ever  had.  They  were  undoubtedly  induced  at 
that  exact  time    by  the  autosuggestion   which 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  65 

connected  the  symptom  with  the  hour  and  by  the 
conviction  or  fear,  after  the  first  experience,  that 
the  attack  would  recur  at  the  same  hour. 

As  we  have  already  shown,  one  of  the  chief 
factors  in  autosuggestion  is  faith.  This  is,  in 
fact,  a  fundamental  principle  recognized  by  all 
Faith-healers  from  Jesus  of  Nazareth  onwards. 

The  cases  during  the  present  war  where  nervous 
aphonia  and  paralysis,  popularly  diagnosed  with 
co-related  cases  of  neurasthenia  under  the  com- 
prehensive title  "  Shell  Shock,"  have  completely 
yielded  to  simple  suggestion  by  affirmation  on 
the  part  of  the  physician  and  confidence  on  the 
part  of  the  patient,  must  number  hundreds  of 
recorded  cases.  Excellent  results  are  often  ob- 
tained in  cases  of  aphonia  and  paralysis  by  the 
suggestive  influence  of  electricity  applied  to  the 
vocal  cords  and  the  nerve  centres.  Bernheim  * 
records  several  cures  of  this  description.  Smith 
and  Pear  f  quote  a  striking  but  somewhat  erratic 
case  in  which  suggestion  was  conveyed  purely  by 
the  faradic  current.  The  case  is  recorded  by 
Blasig  t  of  a  sailor  on  the  German  battle  cruiser 
Derfflinger.  "  A  seaman  from  the  Derfflinger 
was  brought  into  a  naval  hospital  with  loss  of 
voice  on  December  22, 1914,  and  could  only  speak 
in  a  whisper.  He  stated  that  his  voice  had  always 
been  clear  and  well  imder  control.  At  the  be- 
ginning of  December  he  had  a  slight  cold,  which 

*  "  Suggestive  Therapeutics." 
t  Op.  cit.,  p.  44. 

X  Miinchener  Medizinische  Wochenschrifi,  June  15,  1915. 

E 


66  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

he  attributed  to  sentry  duty  on  deck  in  very 
stormy  and  wet  weather.  While  in  the  ammuni- 
tion chamber  of  the  big  guns,  he  was  greatly 
upset  during  the  firing  and  suddenly  lost  his 
voice.  After  fourteen  days  he  recovered  his 
speech.  On  February  12,  1915,  he  returned  to 
hospital  with  complete  loss  of  voice,  immediately 
after  the  naval  engagement  in  the  North  Sea. 
On  February  15  he  was  treated  with  electricity, 
directly  applied  to  the  vocal  cords,  and  on 
March  20  he  was  discharged  with  complete  re- 
covery of  his  speech.  But  on  returning  to  duty,  as 
soon  as  he  went  on  board  his  ship,  his  voice  was 
suddenly  lost  for  the  third  time  and  he  remained 
aphonic." 

More  spectacular,  but  not  more  wonderful 
than  the  cures  of  the  professional  psychiatrist, 
are  some  of  the  so-called  miracles  that  fill  the 
pages  of  religious  history ;  and  they  are  less  easy 
to  explain,  according  to  the  invariable  laws  of 
suggestion,  only  in  proportion  to  their  lack  of 
authenticity.  There  is  no  reason  for  doubting 
that  thousands  of  remarkable  and  absolutely 
authenticated  cures  have  taken  place  at  the 
healing  waters  of  Lourdes,  or  that  many  of  the 
recorded  cases  of  the  cure  of  epileptics,  blind, 
deaf  and  dumb  and  sick  at  the  hands  of  Saints 
and  others  are  substantially  true.  Many  of  these 
stories  are,  of  course,  embellished  and  exaggerated, 
while  others  are  wholly  fictitious,  but  the  ma- 
jority are  based  upon  more  than  a  foundation  of 
fact.     The  one  essential  in  all  these  cases  is  faith 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  67 

in  healer  and  patient.  The  truth  of  the  hypo- 
thesis upon  which  that  faith  is  founded  has  not 
the  shghtest  effect  on  the  efficacy  of  the  cure. 
Hudson  quotes  the  following  passage  from  Bern- 
heim :  "  Among  all  the  moral  causes  which, 
appealing  to  the  imagination,  set  the  cerebral 
mechanism  of  possible  causes  at  work,  none 
is  so  efficacious  as  religious  faith.  Numbers  of 
authentic  cures  have  certainly  been  due  to  it." 
On  this  fact  are  based  the  numerous  theories 
propounded  by  the  different  sects  and  schools  of 
faith-  and  prayer-healers  that  exist  to-day. 

The  conclusion  is  irresistible  and  obvious  to 
any  one  not  blinded  by  religious  prejudice  that 
whether  the  object  of  faith  is  real  or  false  the 
result  attained  will  be  the  same  in  either  case. 
Faith  will  produce  "  miracles "  irrespective  of 
the  premises  on  which  it  is  founded.  This 
accounts  for  the  quite  considerable  success  (apart 
from  financial  considerations)  attained  by 
"  Christian  Scientists  "  in  spite  of  the  self-evi- 
dent absurdity  of  their  tenets,  and  the  fact  that 
they  are  without  the  remotest  conception  of  the 
real  principles  which  underlie  their  so-called 
"  science." 

One  of  the  most  important  and  striking  facts 
discovered  by  students  of  hypnotism  is  the 
complete  recollection  by  the  subject  in  the  hyp- 
notic condition  of  all  he  may  have  learned  or 
forgotten  in  the  normal  state,  and,  in  fact,  of  all 
he  may  consciously  or  unconsciously  have  ex- 
perienced, and  this  recollection  can  be  induced 


68  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

at  the  will  of  the  operator.  The  subjective 
mind  is  said  to  have  a  perfect  memory,  that 
is  to  say,  it  is  capable  of  registering  with  unfailing 
accuracy  every  experience  of  the  individual ;  for 
this  reason  hypnotic  subjects  have  a  range  and 
wealth  of  knowledge  quite  beyond  their  waking 
abilities.  It  is  self-evident  that  any  forgotten 
fact  that  is  recalled  by  an  effort  or  at  random, 
when  an  associationist  explanation  would  be 
wholly  inadequate,  must  have  lain  stored  all  the 
while  below  the  level  of  consciousness. 

As  the  factors  of  memory  and  heredity  together 
have  an  important  bearing  on  the  growth  of 
moral  ideas,  we  may  deal  with  the  subject  a  little 
more  fully.  According  to  James,  "  The  Stream 
of  Thought  flows  on  :  but  most  of  its  segments  fall 
into  the  bottomless  abyss  of  oblivion."*  "  Re- 
tention means  liability  [the  italics  are  the  author's] 
to  recall,  and  it  means  nothing  more  than  such 
liability.  The  only  proof  of  there  being  retention 
is  that  recall  actually  takes  place. "f  His  posi- 
tion is  slightly  modified  some  pages  later,  where  he 
says,  after  recording  a  few  cases  of  hypnotic 
memory :  "  All  these  pathological  facts  are 
showing  us  that  the  sphere  of  possible  recollection 
may  be  wider  than  we  think,  and  that  in  certain 
matters  apparently  oblivion  is  no  proof  against 
possible  recall  under  other  conditions."  But 
adds :  "  They  give  no  countenance,  however,  to  the 
extravagant  opinion  that  nothing  we  experience 

*  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  p.  643. 
t  IMd.,  vol.  i,  p.  654. 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  69 

can  be  absolutely  forgotten."*  The  only  reason 
he  gives,  however,  for  discountenancing  this 
possibility  is  that  he  cannot  find  sufficient  ex- 
planation for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we  believe 
that  there  is  now  ample  evidence  to  show  that  all 
experience  is  retained  in  some  portion  of  the 
psychic  whole,  and  that  although  it  may  not  have 
been  consciously  realized  at  all,  it  will  still  have 
been  subconsciously  registered.  One  of  the  cases 
most  often  quoted  in  illustration  of  this  appears 
in  Coleridge's  "  Biographia  Literaria  "|  and  is 
here  repeated  since  it  is  given  by  James  and  also 
at  greater  length  by  Hudson.f  According  to 
the  author  it  occurred  a  year  or  two  before  his 
arrival  at  Gottingen. 

"  In  a  Roman  Catholic  town  in  Germany,  a 
young  woman,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
was  seized  with  a  fever,  and  was  said  by  the 
priests  to  be  possessed  of  a  devil,  because  she  was 
heard  talking  Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew.  Whole 
sheets  of  her  ravings  were  written  out  and  found 
to  consist  of  sentences  intelligible  in  themselves 
but  having  slight  connexion  with  each  other. 
Of  her  Hebrew  sayings,  only  a  few  could  be 
traced  to  the  Bible  and  most  seemed  to  be  in  the 
Rabbinical  dialect.  Many  eminent  physiologists 
and  psychologists  visited  the  town  and  cross- 

*  •'  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  682. 

f  Ed.  1847,  vol.  i,  p,  117 ;  also  quoted  in  Carpenter's  "  Mental 
Physiology,"  chap,  x,  in  illustration  of  his  theory  of  "  unconscious 
cerebrations." 

%  Hudson's  "  Psychic  Phenomena,"  p.  44,  and  James's  "  Principles 
of  Psychology,"  vol.  i,  p.  681. 


70  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

examined  the  case  on  the  spot.  All  trick  was 
out  of  the  question  ;  the  woman  was  a  simple 
creature  :  there  was  no  doubt  as  to  the  fever. 
It  was  long  before  any  explanation,  save  that  of 
demoniacal  possession,  could  be  obtained.  At 
last  the  mystery  was  unveiled  by  a  physician, 
who  determined  to  trace  back  the  girl's  history, 
and  who,  after  much  trouble,  discovered  that  at 
the  age  of  nine  she  had  been  charitably  taken  by 
an  old  Protestant  pastor,  a  great  Hebrew  scholar, 
in  whose  house  she  lived  till  his  death.  On 
further  inquiry,  it  appeared  to  have  been  the  old 
man's  custom  for  years  to  walk  up  and  down  a 
passage  of  his  house  into  which  the  kitchen 
opened,  and  to  read  to  himself  with  a  loud  voice 
out  of  his  books.  The  books  were  ransacked, 
and  among  them  were  found  several  Greek  and 
Latin  Fathers,  together  with  a  collection  of 
Rabbinical  writings.  In  these  works  so  many 
of  the  passages  taken  down  at  the  young  woman's 
bedside  were  identical  that  there  could  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  as  to  their  source." 

James,  who  considered  that  phenomenal 
memories  were  accounted  for  by  the  exceptional 
persistence  or  permanence  of  the  "  paths  "  of 
thought,  a  purely  physiological  property  of  the 
brain-tissue  of  the  individual,  quotes  a  case 
within  his  own  experience  which,  if  we  accept 
Hudson's  theory,  affords  a  typical  illustration 
of  the  facility  possessed  by  some  men  of  drawing 
upon  the  knowledge  of  their  own  subjective  minds. 

"  What   these   cases   show   is   that   the   mere 


THE  LAWS  OF  SUGGESTION  71 

organic  retentiveness  of  a  man  need  bear  no 
definite  relation  to  his  other  mental  powers.  Men 
of  the  highest  general  powers  will  often  forget 
nothing,  however  insignificant.  One  of  the  most 
generally  accomplished  men  I  know  has  a  memory 
of  this  sort.  He  never  keeps  written  note  of 
anything,  yet  is  never  at  a  loss  for  a  fact  which 
he  has  once  heard.  As  an  instance  of  his  de- 
sultory memory,  he  was  introduced  to  a  certain 
colonel  at  a  club.  The  conversation  fell  upon 
the  signs  of  age  in  man.  The  colonel  challenged 
him  to  estimate  his  age.  He  looked  at  him,  and 
gave  the  exact  day  of  his  birth,  to  the  wonder  of 
all.  But  the  secret  of  this  accuracy  was  that, 
having  picked  up  some  days  previously  an  army 
register,  he  had  idly  turned  over  its  list  of  names 
with  the  dates  of  birth,  graduation,  promotion, 
etc.,  attached,  and  when  the  colonel's  name  was 
mentioned  to  him  at  the  club,  these  figures,  on 
which  he  had  not  bestowed  a  moment's  thought, 
involuntarily  surged  up  in  his  mind." 

It  is  hoped  that  the  foregoing  has  made  it  clear 
that  a  distinction  exists  between  the  normal  or 
objective  memory,  or  recollection,  which  is  capable 
of  cerebral  localization,  and  the  subjective  memory, 
which  appears  to  be  absolute  and  without  anato- 
mical basis.  The  very  fact  that  the  normal 
memory  is  most  efficient  when  the  brain  is 
healthy,  and  the  remarkable  powers  of  the  sub- 
jective memory  are  seen  to  the  best  advantage 
when  the  brain  is  diseased  or  dormant,  serves  to 
emphasize   the   distinction.     This,  too,  explains 


72  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

the  otherwise  unaccountable  fact  that  quite 
abnormal  memories  are  sometimes  possessed  by 
imbeciles  equally  with  men  of  genius,  especially 
that  type  of  ecstatic  mind  often  mistaken  for 
genius  by  the  world.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  laying 
great  emphasis  on  the  distinction,  proclaims  the 
domination  of  will,  not  reason,  as  the  mark  of 
genius  in  art.*  But  the  distinction  is  super- 
fluous and  misleading :  it  is  just  that  type  of 
*'  genius "  (?),  fruitful  when  the  will  is 
anaesthetized  and  the  range  and  wealth  of  the 
subjective  mind  given  free  play,  whose  works 
degenerate  into  decadent  mysticism ;  it  is  when 
reason  ceases  to  direct  the  course  of  genius  that 
the  subjective  stratum  dominates  the  throne; 
and  the  mind,  fed  and  nourished  by  the  deep- 
seated  lusts  of  the  body,  grows  mad  with  the 
exuberance  of  its  own  descriptive  powers. 

*  "  The  Sanity  of  Art,"  by  George  Bernard  Shaw. 


VI 

VALUER  AND  VALUATION 

Value  implies  a  valuer ;  however  universal  or 
established  a  value  may  be,  the  term  is  meaning- 
less unless  it  bears  relation  to  people  who  value. 
No  definition  of  value  is  possible,  or  at  any  rate 
satisfactory,  that  does  not  imply  the  judgment, 
choice,  or  assertion  of  a  valuer  in  the  act  of 
valuing.  The  universality  of  a  value  does  not 
make  it  objective  or  independent  of  valuers,  but 
merely  widens  the  applicability  of  that  value 
with  regard  to  any  imaginable  valuer.  If  this 
can  be  admitted,  it  follows  that  value  cannot  be 
made  independent  of  the  factors  that  determine  or 
have  determined  the  mental  attitude  of  the  valuer. 
For  this  reason  I  will  attempt  to  give  an  account 
of  some  of  the  factors  which  bear  directly  upon 
man,  the  valuer,  and  less  directly  upon  values  in 
general  and  moral  values  in  particular.  The  dis- 
cussion will  be  imder  four  headings :  (1)  Instinct 
and  Heredity ;  (2)  Emotion ;  (3)  Judgment  of 
Ends ;   (4)  Environment  and  Cosmic  Suggestion. 

(1)  Instinct  and  Heredity 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  part  played  by 

instinct  in  determining  the  initial  character  of 

73 


74  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

the  ego.  Instincts  are  here  distinguished  from 
the  emotions  to  which  they  give  rise.  With- 
out unduly  stretching  the  meaning  of  the  word 
"  suggestion,"  in  the  sense  of  a  prompting  to  ac- 
tion not  specifically  in  hypnotism,  instinct  may 
perhaps  be  looked  upon  as  the  innate  suggestion 
of  heredity.  The  two  primary  factors  held  to  be 
fundamental  in  shaping  and  influencing  the 
character  of  the  individual  are  environment  and 
heredity.  The  question  of  the  predominance  of 
the  one  influence  or  the  other  is  the  subject  of 
keen  controversy,  and  coincides  with  the  con- 
tingent problem  of  the  relative  importance  of 
inherent  and  acquired  characters. 

It  is  now  becoming  increasingly  evident  that 
the  problem  of  heredity  is  nearer  a  solution  if 
viewed  rather  from  the  psychical  than  from  the 
purely  biological  or  material  aspect.  So  we  seek 
the  solution  of  the  secret  in  psychology.  The 
vital  factor  in  organism  is  psychic  from  protozoan 
to  man,  whether  we  identify  it  with  "  psycho- 
plasm,"  soul,  ego,  or  "  subjective  mind." 

Those  who  put  forward  memory  as  the  basis  of 
heredity  show  that  evolution  implies  the  reten- 
tion by  organisms  of  their  experiences  in  accom- 
modating themselves  to  their  gradually  changing 
environment.  Constant  and  reiterated  striving 
in  certain  directions  in  this  process  of  accommoda- 
tion, until  actions  become  automatic — ^free  of 
effort — produces  habit.  In  the  words  of  Professor 
Ward :  "  This  law  of  habit  we  may  reasonably 
regard  as  exemplified  in  the  life  of  every  individual 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  75 

in  the  long  line  of  genealogical  ascent  that  con- 
nects us  with  our  humblest  ancestors,  in  so  far 
as  every  permanent  advance  in  the  scale  of  life 
implies  a  basis  of  habit  embodied  in  a  structure 
which  has  been  perfected  by  practice."  * 
Laborious  observations  have  been  recorded  of 
minute  unicellular  creatures  to  show  that  they 
"  succeed  as  we  do,  only  by  way  of  trial  and 
error."  Thus  we  are  led  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  acquisition  of  habits  by  the  individual 
during  his  efforts  to  adapt  himself  to  his  en- 
vironment, and  transmitted  down  a  long  line  of 
genealogical  descent,  is  the  method  of  heredity ; 
and  further,  that  man,  in  common  with  other 
animals,  inherits  all  these  racial  and  individual 
acquirements  from  his  parents.  Instinct,  we 
have  said,  may  be  termed  the  "  Suggestion  of 
Heredity,"  which  again  is  "  race  memory,"  or 
the  evolutionary  product  of  habits  acquired 
during  the  process  of  man's  adaptability  to  his 
environment.  This,  then,  is  the  primary  and 
fundamental  determinant  of  the  character  and 
quality  of  personality.  It  is  the  quality  which  is 
inherent  in  a  man  from  the  moment  he  begins  his 
individual  existence,  that  is,  from  the  moment 
the  sexual  cells  of  both  parents  coalesce  in  the 
process  of  conception  and  form  a  new  stem-cell. 
Haeckel  divides  the  instincts  into  two  chief 
classes  :  the  primary,  which  can  be  traced  to 
the  commencement  of  organic  life — the  common 
lower  impulses  inherent  in  the  psychoplasm.     The 

*  "  Heredity  and  Memory,"  p.  15. 


76  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

chief  are  impulses  to  self-preservation  (by  de- 
fence and  maintenance)  and  the  preservation 
of  the  species  (by  generation  and  the  care  of  the 
young).  These  two,  himger  and  reproduction, 
are  universally  recognized  as  fundamental.  The 
secondary  were  due  to  intelligent  adaption ; 
translated  into  habit,  they  gradually  become 
automatic  and  "  innate  "  in  subsequent  genera- 
tions. The  earlier  these  habits  are  acquired  and 
ingrained  in  the  life  history  of  the  race,  the  more 
invariable  and  immutable  will  be  their  trans- 
mission ;  the  habits  of  a  few  generations  are 
easily  modified  or  effaced  by  conflicting  tendencies 
or  conditions.  The  life  history  of  every  new 
individual,  in  its  initial  stages,  is  a  (more  or  less 
complete*)  recapitulation  of  the  life  history  of 
the  race.  The  earlier  ancestral  acquisitions  have 
been  transformed  into  habit  and  have  become 
secondarily  automatic,  the  less  are  they  liable  to 
variation,  and  the  more  inexorable  and  unfaiUng 
will  be  their  transmission.  Thus  Darwin  showed 
the  greater  immutabiUty  of  generic  characters 
over  later  acquired  specific  characters.  This 
applies  to  psychic  as  well  as  to  physical  characters. 
In  the  same  way  the  earlier,  during  the  course  of 
his  life,  a  man  assimilates  a  strong  suggestion, 
the  greater  will  be  its  effect  and  the  longer  its 
influence  will  last. 

Let  us   now  consider   instinct  in  relation   to 
moral  conceptions.    Dr.  McDougall  gives  promi- 

*  Processes  known   technically   as   palingenesis   and    cenogenesis, 
the  former  term  denoting  the  more  complete  epitomized  development. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  77 

nence  in  his  "  Social  Psychology  "  to  the  follow- 
ing instincts,  which,  together  with  the  emotional 
excitements  which  accompany  them,  play  the 
foremost  part  in  the  evolution  of  moral  ideas: 
(1)  The  reproductive,  parental  and  erotic  in- 
stincts, responsible  for  the  earliest  form  of  social 
feeling ;  (2)  the  instinct  of  pugnacity,  with 
which  are  connected  the  emotions  of  resentment 
and  revenge,  which  give  rise,  when  complicated 
with  other  instincts,  to  indignation  at  anti-social 
conduct ;  (3)  the  gregarious  instinct,  which 
inclines  animals  to  gather  together  in  aggrega- 
tions of  their  own  species — this  impulse  has  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  sympathetic  emotions 
and  is  at  the  root  of  tribal  loyalty ;  (4)  the 
instincts  of  acquisition  and  construction,  which 
have  been  developed  with  the  idea  of  property, 
and  the  moral  judgments  connected  therewith ; 
(5)  the  instincts  of  self-abasement  (or  subjection) 
and  of  self-assertion  (or  self-display),  with  which 
are  connected  the  emotions  of  "  depression  "  and 
"  elation " — the  former  instinct  gives  rise  to 
feelings  of  respect  towards  superiors,  divine  or 
human,  and  the  latter  is  the  basis  of  self-respect.* 
Other  writers  lay  greater  emphasis  on  a  distinct 
instinct  of  Imitation.  It  is  undoubted  that 
imitation,  both  when  it  is  spontaneous  and  when 
it  is  deliberate — ^the  distinction  between  the  two 
forms  should  be  carefully  observed — plays  a  great 

*  Dean  Rashdall,  who  thus  summarizes  his  position,  is  candid  enough 
to  admit  the  strength  of  McDougall's  psychological  analysis,  which, 
however,  he  fails  to  see  undermines  his  own  position. 


78  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

part  in  the  formation  of  moral  judgments. 
Theological  and  ethical  writers  are  fond  of  saying 
that  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  arises  from  the 
consciousness  of  approval,  and  consequent  imita- 
tion, of  an  ideal  or  a  standard  which  is  submitted 
to  our  judgment ;  this  implies  deliberate  imita- 
tion. The  imitative  tendency  (purely  spon- 
taneous) is  strongly  marked  in  every  child  in  its 
first  efforts  at  vocalization,  which  are  pure 
"  Echolalia,"  i.e.  incessant  repetition  of  the 
sounds  it  hears  ;  in  fact,  imitation  marks  every 
step  of  a  child's  growing  consciousness.  Practi- 
cally all  phenomena,  however,  attributed  to  the 
imitative  instinct  is  in  reality  a  manifestation 
of  response  to  extrinsic  suggestion.  James 
speaks  of  "  the  imitative  tendency  which  shows 
itself  in  large  masses  of  men,  and  produces 
panics,  and  orgies  and  frenzies  of  violence,  and 
which  only  the  rarest  individuals  can  actively 
withstand.  .  .  .  Certain  mesmerized  subjects 
must  automatically  imitate  whatever  motion 
their  operator  makes  before  their  eyes."* 

To  ascribe  this  tendency  to  a  special  instinct 
would  be  to  disclose  a  faulty  appreciation  of  mob 
psychology  and  the  Laws  of  Suggestion.  These 
panics,  orgies  and  frenzies  of  violence,  and  similar 
vindictive  or  enthusiastic  mob  tendencies,  are 
simply  the  natural  response  to  mass  or  cosmic 
suggestion,  as  we  shall  see  later. 

The  final  and  precipitate  cause  of  these  out- 
breaks is  frequently  the  personal  magnetism,  or 

*  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  ii,  p.  408. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  79 

more  correctly  the  suggestion,  of  one  man.  The 
quahties  necessary  for  the  exercise  of  this  power — 
the  secret  of  successful  demagogy — ^are  not,  as 
might  be  supposed,  the  possession  of  a  dominant 
will  and  a  constructive,  purposive  or  tenacious 
intellect.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  a  great  man 
of  action,  a  Napoleon  or  Caesar,  arises,  and  by 
these  sterling  qualities  dominates  the  masses  and 
their  attendant  sycophants  and  demagogues  ;  but 
more  usually  the  essentials  are  a  gift  for  facile 
and  frenzied  oratory  and  the  power  of  evoking 
emotional  presentations,  qualities  possessed,  par 
excellence,  by  madmen  and  fanatics,  the 
Kerenskys,  Lenins  and  visionaries  of  all  times. 
Their  powers  are  the  more  irresistible,  it  is 
true,  if  combined  with  a  shrewd  knowledge  of 
correct  methods  of  propaganda  and  lavish  adu- 
lation, for  the  obvious  reason  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  strongest  suggestion  is  the  one  that  is 
most  acceptable  to  the  subject  and  most  in  ac- 
cord with  his  predilections.  Nothing  would  be 
truer  than  to  say  that  only  the  rarest  indivi- 
duals can  actively  withstand  the  onslaught  of 
cosmic  suggestion.  It  is  significant  that  the 
greatest  human  type,  the  true  genius,  who 
appears  most  often  in  the  great  philosopher, 
less  often  in  the  great  artist,  and  who  possesses  a 
superabundance  of  dominant  will-power  and 
constructiveness,  is  far  less  powerful  than  the 
great  conqueror  or  politician ;  for  he  commands 
intellect  rather  than  emotion,  and  the  world  is 
governed  by  emotion. 


80  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

It  is  not  sufficiently  realized  that  many  so- 
called  geniuses,  imaginative,  histrionic  and 
poetical,  can  never  deserve  the  highest  place,  for 
they  are  the  sounding-boards  of  the  world ; 
their  superlative  quality  is  receptivity  ;  they  are 
instruments,  not  players ;  they  voice  the  great 
masses,  and  they  share  with  publicists  and  poli- 
ticians a  desire  to  be  incriminated  in  the  move- 
ment of  their  surroundings.  Wieninger,  in  his 
"  Sex  and  Character,"  emphasizes  the  dependence 
of  publicists  and  tribunes  of  the  people  upon  the 
masses  they  would  lead.  The  politician,  like  the 
prostitute,  has  to  court  the  populace ;  she  is  a 
woman  of  the  streets — ^he  is  a  man  of  the  streets. 
For  this  reason  he  denies  to  the  great  politician 
and  the  man  of  action  the  quality  of  true  great- 
ness. "The  man  of  action  shares  with  the 
epileptic  the  desire  to  be  in  criminal  relation  to 
everything  around  him,  to  make  them  appanages 
of  his  petty  self.  The  great  man  feels  himself 
defined  and  separate  from  the  world,  a  nomad 
amongst  nomads,  and  as  a  true  microcosm  he 
feels  the  world  already  within  him." 

The  really  great  men,  the  Kants,  the  Descartes, 
Leibnizs  or  Spencers,  and  the  greatest  artists 
are  wholly  creative,  purposive,  dynamic ;  they 
owe  no  allegiance  to  the  masses,  for  they  are 
greater  than  the  masses  ;  they  realize  all  without 
reflecting  all ;  they  seek  nourishment  where  they 
will,  and  they  spew  out  what  they  will ;  this  per- 
fect freedom  is  necessary  for  the  attainment  of 
truth.     Truthfulness  is  a  necessary  attribute  of 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  81 

genius,  but  not  of  statecraft  or  government,  or  of 
poetical  effusions  of  the  imagination. 

W^hile  we  are  dealing  with  the  subject  of 
instincts  it  may  not  seem  out  of  place  to  refer  to 
the  widely  held  belief  that  maternal  impressions 
during  pregnancy  have  a  direct  influence  on  the 
temperament  of  the  child,  and  are  often  respon- 
sible for  inducing  definite  tendencies  of  aversion 
and  attraction  and  even  physical  resemblances. 
Although  such  acquired  tendencies,  admitting 
their  existence,  cannot  strictly  be  classed  with 
the  instincts  or  tendencies  inherited  from  former 
generations,  since  they  are  acquired  after  the 
inception  of,  and  by,  the  new  individual ;  yet 
they  have  a  resemblance  in  that  they  are  both 
pre-natal  acquirements,  and  are  manifested  in  the 
same  way.  Writers  on  heredity  and  biology  are 
apt  to  dismiss  the  subject  as  unworthy  of  serious 
consideration,  and  to  account  for  any  instances 
of  the  sort  attributed  to  this  cause  as  based  on 
pure  coincidence.  It  is,  however,  significant 
that  the  great  majority  of  mothers  who  have 
given  the  matter  any  thought  are,  as  a  rule, 
firmly  convinced  of  the  reality  of  pre-natal 
influences.  When  the  principles  of  suggestion 
are  applied  to  the  case,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
conditions  of  pre-natal  existence  are  favourable 
for  the  reception  by  an  unborn  child  of  strong 
telepathic  suggestions  from  its  mother.  The 
embryo  mind  is  entirely  receptive  ;  any  violent 
psychic  disturbance  in  the  mother  must  react 
upon   the   child.    Most   people    know   of   some 


82  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATIQSM 

instance  which  points  to  the  "  impression " 
theory,  and  which  it  would  be  impossible  to  ac- 
count for  in  any  other  way. 

There  appear  to  be  no  reasonable  grounds  for 
denying  that  maternal  impressions  may  some- 
times be  held  accountable  for  temperamental 
tendencies,  not  easily  attributable  to  heredity, 
although  it  would,  of  course,  be  absurd  to  attempt 
to  account  for  all  abnormalities  in  the  same  way. 
The  naturally  greater  receptivity  and  sugges- 
tibility of  women,  shown  by  their  quick  response 
to  emotional  suggestion,  their  credulousness,  and 
the  fact  that  women  are  the  best  medimns,* 
becomes  very  much  more  marked  during  preg- 
nancy. At  such  times  some  women,  normally 
distinguished  by  their  vigour  and  initiative, 
become  conspicuously  impressionable ;  they 
become,  in  fact,  ready  "  conductors  "  of  sugges- 
tion. It  follows  that  the  influences  that  bear 
strongest  upon  them  also  bear  upon  the  child. 

Greater  importance  should  not  be  attached  to 
the  psychic  environment  of  a  child  than  to  its 
inherent  hereditary  qualities,  which  irrevocably 
determine  its  native  tendencies  and  the   limits 

*  Many  authorities  deny  that  women  are  more  easily  hypnotized 
than  men.  It  should,  however,  be  remembered  that  emotional  sug- 
gestibility does  not  correspond  with  susceptibility  to  hypnotic  influence. 
The  neurotic,  weak-brained  and  hysterical,  who  are  usually  most 
susceptible  to  emotional  suggestions  in  normal  life,  are  invariably  the 
most  difficult  to  hypnotize,  and  on  the  other  hand,  as  Dr.  Bramwell 
points  out,  "  Subjects  who  readily  respond  to  suggestions  when  hypno- 
tized are  frequently  the  very  ones  who  have  for  years  resisted  suggestion 
in  the  waking  condition,  even  when  this  has  been  associated  with 
emotional  states."  It  is  not,  therefore,  in  hypnotic  phenomena  that 
evidence  of  the  greater  suggestibility  of  women  is  found. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  88 

of  its  ultimate  possibilities.  Environment  may 
modify  or  enhance  a  child's  inherent  charac- 
teristics in  an  infinite  variety  of  ways,  but  cannot 
nullify  them  or  transcend  by  one  iota  the  limit 
of  its  potential  development. 

In  a  previous  chapter  we  discussed  the  view  of 
those  who  regard  moral  judgment  as  an  emotion 
or  intuition  of  the  "  good  "  and  the  "  right," 
and  who  find  justification  for  our  rules  of  conduct 
by  referring  them  to  the  Divine  Will,  which  is 
supposed  to  inspire  them  by  means  of  the  "  moral 
organ  "  or  conscience.  We  believe  that  a  correct 
appreciation  of  psychology  makes  it  abundantly 
clear  that  although  there  are  many  impulsive, 
instinctive  and  emotional  factors  totally  im- 
connected  with  any  rational  or  intellectual  pro- 
cess which  do,  indeed,  affect  our  moral  judgments 
and  give  rise  to  ethical  conventions,  these  factors 
can  give  no  validity  to  moral  codes;  and  that, 
stripped  of  the  sentiments  and  emotions  with 
which  they  are  obscured,  moral  systems  must  be 
judged  by  principles  of  utility,  while  they  are 
enforceable  according  to  the  universality  with 
which  they  are  desired.  It  is,  moreover,  equally 
absurd  to  look  upon  moral  values  as  ultimate  and 
irreducible  categories  of  good  and  evil,  irre- 
vocably codified  by  an  omniscient  Deity  for  the 
conduct  of  humanity  for  all  time,  and  supposedly 
accessible  to  the  intelligence  of  all  who  consult 
their  conscience.  This  latter  position,  which  is 
maintained  by  Theistic  "  Rationalists,"  leads  to 
precisely  the  same  "  conclusion "  as  the  argu- 


84  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

ments  of  the  "  Intuit ionalists,"  the  only  difference 
between  them  being  that  the  conscience  of  the 
"  RationaHsts "  is  a  thinking  and  intellectual 
organ,  while  the  conscience  of  the  Intuitionalists 
is  an  emotional  and  instinctive  organ.  But  this 
amicable  convergence  is  not  accidental  but  a 
sine  qua  non,  since  in  either  case  the  object  aimed 
at  is  identically  the  same,  that  object  being  the 
establishment  of  conscience,  dependent  on 
morality,  on  a  pinnacle  of  ethical  omniscience  and 
infallibility,  where  its  authority  shall  be  unques- 
tionable and  absolute.  They  may  well  be  left 
to  their  quarrel,  which  in  reality  amounts  to  little 
more  than  verbal  quibbling. 

Instinct,  as  we  have  seen,  must  inevitably 
play  a  very  large  part  in  the  evolution  of  pubHc 
morality  and  the  moral  impulse  of  every  in- 
dividual. Careful  statistics  have  shown  that 
criminal  tendencies  make  their  appearance  with 
unfaihng  persistency  in  selected  degenerate 
families.  The  genealogical  record  of  one  family 
may  show  a  murderer  in  every  generation ; 
pauperism,  prostitution  and  drunkenness  are 
characteristics  of  another,  and  so  on.  Heredity 
will  primarily  determine  a  man's  inherent 
characteristics — his  instincts,  temperament,  dis- 
position and,  eo  facto,  his  "  conscience."  Other 
factors,  above  all  his  immediate  psychic  environ- 
ment, may,  indeed,  modify  these  tendencies  for 
better  or  worse,  but  imder  the  most  favourable 
conditions  Cosmic  Suggestion,  in  its  aspect  of 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  85 

"  public  conscience,"  can  never  altogether  sup- 
plant strong  inherent  tendencies.  Those  who 
believe  in  the  conscience  myth  sometimes  object 
that  the  voice  of  conscience  always  calls  in  the 
right  direction,  but  that  a  man  may,  throughout  a 
long  life  of  crime,  stifle  and  inhibit  that  "  still  small 
voice,"  yet  in  the  end  (perhaps  when  faced  with 
the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law)  the  wretched 
sinner  will  exhibit  the  symptoms  of  the  most 
genuine  and  heartfelt  remorse  and  express  the 
greatest  horror  of  his  evil  deeds.  This  type  of 
explanation  shows  a  total  failure  to  interpret 
psychological  processes.  It  may,  indeed,  be  a 
common  occurrence  for  a  condemned  criminal, 
brought  suddenly  face  to  face  with  the  prospect 
of  plenary  punishment,  to  experience  real  sorrow 
and  shame  at  his  conduct.  The  emotion  will 
probably  be  perfectly  genuine.  The  prisoner, 
with  little  hope  of  enjoying  the  fruits  of  his 
felony  and  removed  from  the  direct  counter- 
influence  of  a  criminal  environment,  will  be  in 
the  best  possible  frame  of  mind  to  respond  to  the 
right  cosmic  suggestion — ^universal  horror  and 
detestation  of  his  deed.  Such  a  suggestion, 
reacting  upon  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
will  readily  kindle  emotions  of  remorse,  self- 
horror  and  sorrow.  Penitence  need  have  nothing 
to  do  with  any  true  ethical  appreciation  of  the 
action  of  which  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  object. 
Many  cases  have  been  recorded  of  miserable  old 
women  accused  of  witchcraft,  who,  learning  for 


86  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

the  first  time  at  their  trial  of  the  crimes  they  were 
supposed  to  have  commiitted,  have  become  con- 
vinced of  their  guilt,  and  suffering  the  keenest 
pangs  of  remorse  have  died  with  penitence  and 
resignation. 

Fear  is  the  chief  element  of  remorse  :  fear  of  our 
fellow-men,  vague  fears  for  the  future,  or  in  the 
most  literal  sense  the  fear  of  Divine  retribution 
or  God.  Racine  dramatizes  this  emotion  in  the 
famous  confession  of  Athalie  :  filled  with  dread 
at  the  words  of  warning  uttered  by  the  ghost  of 
her  mother  Jezebel,  she  recalls  her  vision  : 

Tremble,  m'a-t-elle  dit, 
fille  digne  de  moi ; 

Le  cruel  Dieu  des  Juifs 
remporte  aussi  sur  toi. 

Je  te  plains  de  tomber 
dans  ses  mains  redoutables. 
Ma  flUe. 

(2)  The  Factor  of  Emotion 

Unfortunately  for  the  attainment  of  truth, 
nothing  has  a  greater  influence  on  the  formation 
of  human  opinion  and  character,  and  is  therefore 
more  inextricably  bound  up  with  all  questions  of 
politics,  religion,  morality  and  art,  than  the 
complex  mental  state  we  call  emotion.  Nothing 
affects  the  well-being,  health  and  happiness  of 
mankind  more  directly. 

Emotion  may  perhaps  be  defined  as  a  con- 
tinuity of  complex  presentations  manifested  in 
organic  sensation.  In  a  sense,  emotion  is  feeling, 
which  is  the  wider  term ;    it  is  an  effect,  which 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  87 

therefore  cannot  exist  without  its  cause,  though 
the  same  cause  under  different  circumstances 
may  produce  many  varied  emotions,  both  in 
quahty  and  degree. 

The  visible  manifestation  of  emotional  dis- 
turbance need  bear  no  relation  to  its  intensity. 
People  of  the  greatest  nervous  sensibility,  in 
whom  emotional  excitements  are  most  deeply 
and  acutely  felt,  often  keep  their  emotions  best 
under  control.  They  are  not,  of  course,  able  to 
inhibit  the  involuntary  or  visceral  processes 
which  are  affected  by  emotion  :  heart,  pulse, 
salivary  glands  and  respiratory  system  may  in- 
deed tell  the  tale  ;  but  the  will  may  prevent  the 
contagion  spreading  further  :  the  intellect  may 
remain  calm,  thought  and  action  slow  and  de- 
liberate, demeanour  outwardly  cool  and  collected.* 
The  lower  the  level  of  will-power  and  intellectual 
development,  the  more  closely  dependent  will  all 
cerebral  processes  be  upon  emotional  states  and 
reactions  ;  at  the  same  time,  the  emotions  become 
cruder,  less  complex  and  subtle  and  even  less 
deeply  felt.  Children  and  savages  are  almost 
entirely  emotional,  in  the  sense  that  they  think 

•  Cf.  the  following  passage  by  Elliot  Smith  and  Pear :  "It  must 
be  understood  that  this  suppression  of  the  external  manifestations  of 
an  emotion  such  as  fear  is  but  a  partial  dominance  of  the  bodily  con- 
comitants of  that  emotion.  The  only  changes  which  can  usually  be 
controlled  by  the  will  are  those  of  the  voluntary  or  skeletal  muscular 
system,  not  those  of  the  involuntary  or  visceral  mechanism.  .  .  .  Men 
may  feel  intense  emotions,  obviously  not  of  fear  alone,  for  a  long  time 
without  displaying  any  signs  of  them.  But  suppression  of  emotion 
is  a  very  exhausting  process.  As  Bacon  says :  '  We  know  diseases 
of  stoppings  and  suffocations  are  the  most  dangerous  in  the  body  : 
and  it  is  not  otherwise  in  the  mind.'  " 


88  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

emotionally  and  have  no  power  of  intellectual 
detachment. 

Professor  Ward  describes  the  effect  of  emotion 
on  thought  very  clearly  as  follows  :  "  Emotional 
excitement — ^and  at  the  outset  the  natural  man 
does  not  think  much  in  cold  blood — quickens  the 
flow  of  ideas.  .  .  .  Familiar  associations  hurry 
attention  away  from  the  proper  topic,  and  thought 
becomes  not  only  discursive  but  wandering;  in  place 
of  concepts  of  fixed  and  crystalline  completeness, 
such  as  logic  describes,  we  may  find  a  congeries  of 
ideas  but  imperfectly  compacted  into  one  generic 
idea,  subject  to  continual  transformation,  and  im- 
plicating much  that  is  irrelevant  and  confusing."  * 

There  are  few  people  indeed  whose  views  on 
religion,  pohtics,  art,  and  the  rights  and  relations 
of  the  sexes  are  not  chiefly  emotional  values. 
We  may  think  that  our  convictions  are  based  on 
logical  reasonings,  but  the  force  of  childish 
impressions  and  associations,  and  the  unresisted 
bias  of  passions  and  interests,  are  the  processes 
by  which  they  have  been  cultivated,  and  rational 
thought  has  been  devoted  to  the  task  of  finding 
reasons  for  the  convictions  that  are  ready  made. 

Emotion,  as  we  have  said,  is  a  continuity  of 
complex  presentations  whose  elements  are  mani- 
fold ;  it  is  a  state  of  feeling  subject  to  constant 
modification  and  expansion  while  experience 
develops.  First  among  the  causal  factors  which 
influence  emotion  are  the  instincts,  others  may  be 
intellectual  concepts,  many  more  come  from  the 

*  Article  on  Psychology,  Encyclopcedia  Britannica,  10th  edition. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  89 

substrata  of  consciousness,  and  of  these  many  are 
strictly  physiological  in  character ;  for  instance, 
there  may  be  disturbances  of  the  genital,  vaso- 
motor or  digestive  systems,  cerebellar  disturbances 
or  latent  molecular  or  biochemical  nervous  con- 
ditions, during  which  the  mind  responds  to  stimuli 
ignored  under  other  or  healthier  circumstances ; 
but  over  all  it  is  the  inherent  disposition  of  the 
immaterial  psychic  or  subjective  mind  which  gives 
the  whole  its  tone  and  tendency.  We  must,  indeed, 
admit  with  James  that  "  a  disembodied  human 
emotion  is  a  sheer  nonentity." 

With  the  psycho-physical  problem  as  to  whether 
sensory  excitation  is  antecedent  to  emotional 
expression,  or  emotion  gives  rise  to  bodily  ex- 
pression, we  are  not  here  directly  concerned. 
Since  emotion  is  a  continuous  condition  of 
experience,  it  may  reasonably  be  supposed  that 
organic  disturbance  is  both  a  contributory  cause 
and  the  reactionary  result  of  emotion.*  Most 
people  admit  that  "  each  emotion  is  a  resultant 
of  a  sum  of  elements,"  and  that  some  of  those 
elements  are  functional  and  organic,  without 
admitting  the  contention  of  Professor  James  and 

*  For  example,  ereutophobia  (fear  of  blushing)  and  tremophobia 
(fear  of  tremor)  are  abnormal  psychoneurotic  conditions  which  illustrate 
the  reaction  and  interaction  between  psychical  state  and  physical 
manifestation.  Blushing  and  spontaneous  tremor  are  reflex  mani- 
festations of  the  emotional  condition,  which  in  these  cases  increase  in 
proportion  to  the  fear  of  blushing  or  of  tremor  respectively.  The 
physical  phenomenon  produces  the  obsession  which,  in  its  turn, 
increases  the  somatic  reaction ;  the  exaggeration  of  the  latter  again 
reacts  on  the  mental  disorder.  Such  psycho-physical  reactions  operate 
in  varying  degree  in  all  states  of  emotional  excitement.  (Roussy  and 
Lhermitte.) 


90  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

those  who  insist  with  him  that  emotion  is  but  a 
sum  of  organic  sensations.* 

Emotional  disturbances  lead  directly  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  mental  balance,  which  divides 
the  normal  man  from  the  madman  and  the 
neurasthenic.  Modern  psychiatrists  lay  stress  on 
the  emotional  character  of  the  latter  affection. 
The  underlying  features  of  "  functional  neurosis  " 
reveal  themselves  in  symptoms  denoting  the 
clash  of  emotional  elements  within,  together 
with  a  corresponding  lack  of  adaptability  to 
outer  environment,  and  are  characterized  by 
instability  and  exaggeration  of  emotion  rather 
than  impaired  intellect.^ 

The  cultivation  of  the  aesthetic,  pleasurable 
and  benevolent  emotions  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  elimination  of  violent  emotional  excitements 
or  discordant  and  morbid  emotions  on  the  other, 
are  conditions  as  essential  for  the  physical  health 
as  for  the  happiness  of  the  individual.  Emotional 
sensibility  is  a  condition  necessary  for  the  full 
appreciation  and  enjoyment  of  art,  and  of  all 
that  is  pleasurable  and  beautiful,  but  when 
emotion  is  allowed  to  colour  reason,  the  mind  is 
closed  to  truth,  knowledge  and  logic. 

Art  gratifies  the  emotions  as  truth  should 
gratify  the  intellect.  It  is  not  always  fully 
realized  how  large  a  part  emotional  elements, 
which  may  embrace  every  form  of  sensory  and 

*  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  vol.  ii,  chap.  xxv. 

t  "  Conflict "  and  •'  repression  "  are  the  terms  in  current  usage  by  psy- 
chiatrists of  the  Freudian  school  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  psycho- 
neurotic disturbance. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  91 

erotic  excitation,  as  well  as  the  whole  tone  of  the 
subjective  mind,  play  in  the  most  intellectual 
criticism  of  an  artistic  achievement.  Of  these 
elements  some  may  be  irrelevant  as  well  as 
irrational,  and  by  no  means  realized  by  the 
critic  at  the  time  of  writing  his  appreciation. 
Elliot  Smith  and  Pear  illustrate  this  point  in  a 
way  few  people  would  want  to  dispute.  "  Let 
us  suppose  that  a  musical  critic,  after  hearing  a 
new  symphony  by  an  unconventional  composer, 
immediately  writes  a  lengthy  appreciation  of  the 
performance.  It  is  clear  that  nobody  would 
expect  him  to  be  able  to  give  off-hand  an  account 
of  his  reasons  for  every  sentence  of  the  criticism. 
But  it  is  obvious  that  a  single  phrase  in  this 
account  may  be  but  the  apex  of  a  whole  pyramid 
of  memories  emanating  from  the  critic's  technical 
training,  his  attitude  towards  the  new  departure, 
experiences  highly  coloured  with  emotion  which  a 
few  notes  of  music  may  have  evoked,  and  his 
mental  condition  at  the  time  he  heard  the  per- 
formance. Nobody  denies  that  these  may  have 
shaped  or  even  determined  his  criticism.  But 
who  believes  either  that  they  were  all  conscious 
at  the  time  of  writing  the  article,  or  that  he  could 
resuscitate  them  without  much  time  and  trouble 
and  perhaps  the  help  of  a  cross-examiner  ?  " 

In  addition  to  the  causal,  largely  emotional, 
elements  might  be  added  a  prime  determinant  in 
artistic  appreciation,  namely,  cosmic  suggestion. 
In  the  case  of  a  leading  critic,  overwhelmingly 
self-confident  and  secure  of  his  position,  the  mere 
knowledge  of  the  consensus  of  informed  and  un- 


92  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

informed  opinion  being  favourable  or  otherwise 
might  conceivably  arouse  an  equally  illogical 
desire  to  be  esoteric  and  different  at  all  costs. 
An  antagonistic  autosuggestion  of  this  sort 
unconsciously  underlying  a  critic's  attitude 
would  more  than  negative  any  body  of  opinion 
in  one  direction.*  But  if  such  artificial  and 
diverse  influences  can  affect  the  most  highly 
trained  and  most  honest  critic,  how  much  more 
will  they  affect  the  credulous  and  untrained  ? 
Far  greater  will  be  the  power  of  authoritative 
opinion  in  influencing  those  whose  emotional 
sensibility  is  blunt  and  untrained,  who  gape  in 
unresponsive  perplexity  at  some  artist's  canvas, 
waiting  to  have  the  emotions  they  do  not  feel 
suggested  to  them,  and  who,  when  given  the  lead, 
infuse  by  the  power  of  association  into  the 
meaningless  daub  or  the  subtlest  motif  alike 
the  same  spirit  of  satisfaction  they  derive  from 
the  garish  crudities  which  alone,  imaided,  find 
a  responsive  echo  in  their  breasts.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  less  tutored  the  intellect  the  more 
real,  as  a  rule,  are  the  creatures  of  the  imagina- 
tion. Children  and  savages  have  a  wonderful 
faculty  for  believing  in  the  reality  of  their  illu- 
sions.    Does  not  this  account  for  the  fact  that 

*  It  should  be  noted  that  this  is  an  inverted  form  of  cosmic  sugges- 
tion which  exerts  a  considerable  influence  over  certain  dispositions  ; 
very  often  this  bias  is  confined  to  one  or  two  subjects  only  in  which 
an  individual  is  particularly  interested,  and  in  connexion  with  which 
a  permanently  repellent  autosuggestion  is  developed.  Some  writers 
have  spoken  of  this  as  contra-suggestion.  On  these  subjects  any  sugges- 
tion conveyed  by  word  or  sign  provokes  an  immediate  and  unthinking 
contradiction  or  an  unreasoning  hostile  attitude  or  tendency. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  93 

the  less  clearly  a  thing  is  understood  the  greater 
is  the  power  of  the  imagination  in  supplying  a 
meaning.  A  certain  dimness  and  mystery  or 
quality  of  incomprehensibility  invariably  adds 
to  the  respect  and  awe  paid  to  works  of  art  and 
their  creators,  officially  labelled  as  "  great." 
Sometimes  mere  age  or  distance  produces  the 
requisite  dimness.  Racine  considered  this  at- 
mosphere of  distance  a  necessary  device  of  stage- 
craft for  the  proper  presentation  of  a  hero. 
"  On  peut  dire  que  le  respect  que  Ton  a  pour  les 
heros  augmente  a  mesure  qu'ils  s'eloignent  de 
nous."*  In  the  same  way  the  intensity  of  horror 
bestowed  upon  the  arch-villain  of  the  piece  is 
increased  in  proportion  to  the  distance  away 
from  which  he  is  regarded ;  in  other  words,  the 
less  you  know  about  him.  But  this  does  not 
hold  good  for  the  heroes  of  the  histrionic  stage 
more  truly  than  for  the  heroes  and  arch-villains 
of  the  wider  stage  of  the  world.  The  principle 
can  be  applied  equally  to  the  heroes  of  art, 
religion,  politics  or  war.  It  is  not,  of  course,  the 
dimness  or  distance  per  se  which  magnifies  the 
object  of  appreciation ;  unaided  that  would 
merely  have  the  opposite  effect.  The  factor  of 
dimness,  by  placing  the  object  further  from  the 
grasp  of  reason,  enables  the  playwright,  politician, 
or  critic,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  play  with  greater 
ease  and  certainty  upon  the  emotions  of  his 
audience,  and  by  force  of  suggestion  to  endue  his 
puppet  more  completely  with  the  symbolic  quality 

*  Preface  k  "Bajazet." 


94  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

he  wishes  to  present.  In  spite  of  Medici  prints, 
oleographic  processes  and  the  extension  of  cul- 
ture which  renders  any  one  hable  to  receive 
choice  samples  of  the  Italian  Masters  free  with  a 
packet  of  cigarettes,  what  William  Hazlitt  said 
with  reference  to  Michael  Angelo  is  still  literally 
true.  "  We  know,"  he  writes,  "  nothing  of  him 
but  his  name.  It  is  an  abstraction  of  fame  and 
greatness.  Our  admiration  of  him  supports  itself, 
and  our  idea  of  his  superiority  seems  self-evident, 
because  it  is  attached  to  his  name  only." 

Convention  is  a  very  real  and  wellnigh  irre- 
sistible power.  Not  a  few  of  our  most  cherished 
valuations — ^artistic,  religious,  political  and  social 
— are  conventional  fetishes  which  have  been 
slowly  evolved  in  the  course  of  a  great  number  of 
years  as  the  result  of  determining  factors,  for  the 
most  part  accidental  and  forgotten,  and  prob- 
ably called  into  existence  for  totally  different 
and  unconnected  reasons.  Yet  the  appropriate 
emotional  reaction,  evoked  by  the  association  of 
an  object  with  such  a  conventional  valuation  or 
sentiment,  may  be  just  as  keenly  and  genuinely 
felt  as  though  it  resulted  from  the  awakening  of 
some  instinctive  or  innate  law  of  our  nature. 
Impressionability  is  not  a  quality  to  be  despised, 
but  on  the  contrary  to  be  carefully  guarded  from 
contamination.  It  is  by  means  of  emotion  that 
all  pleasure  and  pain,  all  aversion  and  attraction, 
and  all  sense  of  the  aesthetic  is  recorded  by  the 
senses.  Emotional  sensibility  may  be  compared 
to  an  instrument  that  may  be  so  finely  made 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  95 

that  it  is  capable  of  registering  the  most  deHcate 
and  exact  vibrations  so  that  any  harsh  sound 
will  injure  it,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be 
made  of  a  texture  so  coarse  that  it  will  respond 
instantly  and  indiscriminately  to  any  loud  and 
crude  noise.  This  instrument  has  an  inherent 
quality  of  excellence  with  a  potentiality  of 
exactness  that  may  be  developed  in  a  great 
variety  of  directions. 

The  many  factors  which  play  a  part  in  aesthetic 
appreciation  have  been  abundantly  explored  by 
psychological  writers.*  They  have  traced  the 
great  variety  of  ways  in  which  art  can  be  the 
means  of  evoking  sympathetic  emotions  by 
connecting  its  subject  with  the  inexhaustible 
interest  in  personality.  They  have  cited  the 
part  played  in  inducing  pleasurable  sensations  in 
music  by  the  association  of  range,  depth  of  tone 
and  pitch  with  the  expression  of  human  passions  ; 
and  in  pictorial  art,  the  appeal  to  muscular  sen- 
sibility by  suggested  associations  with  movement 
and  form,  or  the  effect  of  straight  lines  and  rounded 
forms  in  inducing  sensations  of  vigour  and  repose. 
More  obvious  are  the  appeals  to  the  sexual  instincts. 
There  are  also  associations  that  give  beauty  to 
colours,  pleasurableness  to  those  tints  that  suggest 
youth,  health,  vigour  and  feminine  charm. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  the  agreeableness  of 
symbols  of  strength  and  solidity  ;  the  restfulness 
of  economy  in  presentation,  the  pleasing  effect  of 

*  The  aesthetic  emotions  are  dealt  with  at  length  by  Dr.  Bain  in 
"  The  Emotions  and  the  Will,"  chap.  xiv. 


96  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

contrast  and  symmetry,  variety  and  imity,  of 
balance  and  the  laws  of  proportion  and  musical 
ratios,  or  of  harmony  and  regularity.  The  laws 
of  relativity  or  comparison  and  of  familiarity  and 
strangeness  are  factors  which  play  a  part  in  all 
appreciation.  Finally,  there  is  a  more  exclusively 
intellectual  pleasure  in  the  process  of  analytical 
valuation  of  artistic  production. 

We  cannot  acquire  truth  by  means  of  the 
emotions,  which  can  but  be  the  means  of  inform- 
ing us  of  our  personal  relation  towards  our 
environment.  They  may  reveal  us  to  ourselves, 
or  may  register  the  reflection  of  our  environment 
within  us ;  but  the  consequences  of  emotion 
cannot  be  regarded  as  ephemeral,  for  all  emotional 
excitation  must  have  a  permanent  residual  effect 
upon  the  tone  of  the  subjective  mind. 

(3)  Judgment  of  Ends 

Without  attempting  to  catalogue  or  enumerate 
the  various  intellectual  and  mental  processes, 
consigning  them  to  interminable  classes  and  sub- 
divisions of  volitional,  cognitive,  affective  and 
cogitative  states  or  acts,  labelled  like  so  many 
distinct  specimens  in  a  collector's  museum,  it 
may  yet  be  possible  to  detach  certain  features 
involved  in  the  process  of  moral  judgment  which 
are  distinguishable  from  the  essentially  instinc- 
tive, emotional  and  suggested  elements  we  have 
been  considering.  The  danger  involved  in  re- 
ducing psychological  processes  to  their  constituent 
elements  and  treating  of  each  element  as  though 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  97 

it  were  static  and  dissociated,  is  that  it  is  apt 
to  obscure  a  true  appreciation  of  the  actual 
manifestations  of  personality  which  result  from 
complex  and  interactionary  elements  in  con- 
tinuous motion,  forming  one  integral  whole  in 
constant  process  of  influencing  and  being  in- 
fluenced by  its  environment.  The  whole  is 
always  more  and  something  different  from  the 
sum  of  its  parts.  The  factors  here  specially  re- 
ferred to  which  may  determine  in  greater  or 
lesser  degree  the  nature  and  direction  of  moral 
valuation  are  deliberative,  critical  and  analytic. 
These  are  essentially  the  intellectual  and  objec- 
tive*  processes  exercised  to  the  best  advantage 
when  freed  to  the  greatest  possible  extent  from 
instinctive  and  emotional  complications.  Judg- 
ments formed  under  such  conditions  involve  the 
realization  of  the  ends  and  effects  of  conduct,  and 
an  assignment  of  "  desirableness  "  to  those  ends. 
It  is  clear  that  an  intellectual  judgment  of  this 
nature,  assigning  value  to  the  ends  of  conduct, 
must  take  into  account  those  inherent  charac- 
teristics and  instincts  which  underlie  all  motives 
and  interests.  Thus,  we  recognize  the  fact  of  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  and  are  right  in 
assigning  the  quahfication  "  good "  to  life  as 
denoting  its  desirableness  ;  similarly  the  instinct 
of  acquisition  is  general  and  fundamental  in  the 
human  species,  |  we  accordingly  assign  the  quali- 

*  I.e.  processes  of  the  conscious  or  objective  mind. 

t  There  are  a  few  notable  exceptions  where  this  instinct  appears 
to  be  deficient  among  primitive  and  nomadic  tribes.  McDougall 
instances  the  Punaris  of  Borneo. 

O 


98  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

fication  "  good "  to  property  and  wealth,  and 
to  its  destruction,  "  evil  "  ;  the  abstract  value 
of  the  end  of  this  instinct  is  intensified  and  held 
in  greater  respect  the  more  it  is  realized  to  have 
been  the  means  by  which  the  surplus  energy  of 
mankind  has  been  utilized  to  accumulate  the 
capital  essential  to  the  development  of  civiliza- 
tion. The  desirableness  of  both  life  and  wealth 
is  also  considerably  increased  or  modified  by 
collateral  associations,  by  the  pleasures  they 
enable  us  to  experience. 

There  is  in  all  judgment  of  the  morality  of  an 
action  a  perception  of  the  end  or  consequence  of 
that  action.  The  clearness  or  dimness  of  the 
perception  will  depend  upon  the  habits  of  thought 
and  the  organization  of  motives — or  lack  of  it — 
which  result  from  the  native  tendencies  and 
development  of  the  subjective  mind.  The  norm 
of  valuation  which  we  apply  to  moral  conduct  is 
conditioned  by  many  conscious  and  unconscious 
factors  which  determine  our  idea  of  "  desirable- 
ness," and  the  standard  will  approximate  to  the 
conventional  and  common  standard  of  the  com- 
munity in  so  far  as  we  are  influenced  by  our 
environment — or  in  proportion  to  our  amenability 
to  cosmic  suggestion.  It  is  on  account  of  the 
obvious  desire  for  pleasure  and  for  avoidance  of 
pain  that  Utilitarians  are  justified  in  making  use 
of  that  general  fact  as  a  standard  of  utility. 
This  in  no  way  implies  that  the  motives  of  all 
conduct  are  efforts  to  obtain  pleasurable  sensa- 
tion or  to  avoid  pain.     The  mistake  of  this  dis- 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  d9 

credited  doctrine  of  psychological  hedonism  lay 
in  confusing  the  motive  or  impulse  to  action  with 
the  valuation  of  conduct.  It  is  an  unfortunate 
but  undeniable  fact  that  conduct  is  least  often 
determined  by  valuation.  Realization  or  antici- 
pation of  the  end  of  action  is  not  the  necessary 
stimulus  of  action,  neither  does  it  conform  to 
volition  or  striving ;  but  realization  of  conse- 
quences frequently  inhibits  the  fulfilment  of 
volition.  Both  conduct  and  volition  are  deter- 
mined by  the  relation  of  subject  to  object,  and 
by  the  constitution  of  the  ego,  conditioned,  as 
it  is,  by  the  innumerable  factors  of  heredity  and 
environment. 

(4)  Cosmic  Suggestion 

Public  opinion  is  often  spoken  of  as  something 
mysterious  and  powerful,  to  be  recognized  and 
submitted  to,  but  not  to  be  explained.  Napoleon 
is  credited  with  having  said  :  "  Public  opinion  is 
a  power  invisible,  mysterious,  and  irresistible." 
Some  writers,  failing  to  appreciate  the  true  signi- 
ficance and  nature  of  this  dynamic  factor  in  the 
formation  of  public  sentiment,  are  content  to 
fall  back  on  the  convenient  subterfuge  of  Divine 
agency  as  full  and  sufficient  explanation.  Thus 
they  speak  of  a  "  common  consciousness  "  which 
is  the  arbiter  of  the  morals  and  faiths  of  men,  a 
consciousness  which  is  subject  to  evolutionary 
progress,  and  yet  owes  its  existence  to  Divine 
revelation. 

However  inadequately,  the  attempt  has  never- 


100  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

theless  been  made  in  these  pages  to  present  a 
wider  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  more  precise 
definition  of  those  psychic  and  vital  forces, 
included  in  the  term  environment,  which  play  so 
great  a  part  in  the  formation  and  growth  of 
human  beliefs,  opinions  and  sentiments,  in  bind- 
ing together  nations,  communities  and  groups, 
and  no  less  a  part  in  setting  them  against  one 
another.  For  lack  of  a  better,  the  designation 
"  cosmic  suggestion  "  has  been  used  as  a  generic 
term  to  describe  the  force  resulting  from  the 
accumulative  suggestions  or  impulsions  of  aggre- 
gations of  individual  agents,  between  whom  and 
the  subjects  or  recipients  a  state  of  rapport  is 
more  or  less  established.  It  is  an  aspect,  or 
perhaps  more  accurately  a  product,  of  the  vital 
energy  of  the  cosmos.  In  a  community  or  a 
mass  of  men  moved  by  common  emotions  and 
ideas,  each  individual  plays  the  double  role  of 
operator  and  affected  object  or  recipient. 

The  communication  of  a  proposition  by  sugges- 
tion is  distinguished  from,  though  often  accom- 
panied by,  other  means  by  which  ideas  are 
communicated  through  the  senses,  involving 
rational  processes  which  produce  conviction. 
Emotional  suggestions  are  either  rejected  or 
accepted  unquestioningly  in  the  absence  of  any 
logical  reason.  The  supreme  importance  and 
general  applicability  in  normal  waking  life  of 
this  wider  aspect  of  hypnotic  suggestion  is 
seldom  adequately  appreciated  by  students  of 
social  development.     That  the  faiths  and  con- 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  101 

victions  of  men  do  not  depend  upon  their  appeal 
to  "  man's  reasoning  faculties "  is,  however, 
usually  admitted.  Lecky  frequently  dwells  on 
this  fact,  as  in  the  following  passage  :  "In  most 
men  the  love  of  truth  is  so  languid,  and  their 
reluctance  to  encounter  mental  prejudices  is  so 
great,  that  they  yield  their  judgments  without  an 
effort  to  the  current,  withdraw  their  minds  from 
all  opinions  or  arguments  opposed  to  their  own, 
and  thus  speedily  convince  themselves  of  the 
truth  of  what  they  wish  to  believe." 

Dr.  McDougall  recognizes,  as  do  most  modern 
psychologists,  the  great  social  importance  of  this 
"  current  "  of  which  Lecky  speaks  ;  he  terms  it 
mass-suggestion.  "  Children,"  he  says,  "  largely 
in  virtue  of  their  suggestibility,  rapidly  absorb  the 
knowledge,  beliefs,  and  especially  the  sentiments 
of  their  social  environment.  But  most  adults 
also  remain  suggestible,  especially  towards  mass- 
suggestion,  and  towards  the  propositions  which 
they  know  to  be  supported  by  the  whole  weight 
of  society,  or  by  long  tradition."*  This  also  he 
calls  prestige  suggestion.  Individual  suggesti- 
bility, he  considers,  is  conditioned  by  native  dis- 
position and  character,  and  dependent  upon  the 
relative  strengths  of  the  two  instincts  of  self- 
assertion  and  subjection.  He  does  not,  however, 
appear  to  assign  to  this  factor  of  suggestion  any 
conspicuous  part  in  the  excitation  of  such  emo- 
tions as,  for  instance,  anger,  moral  indignation, 
shame  and  remorse.     But  the  simultaneous  ex- 

*  "  Social  Psychology,"  p.  100. 


102  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

citation  of  the  same  emotion  in  crowds  is  attri- 
buted to  the  action  of  the  gregarious  instinct 
which  is  accountable  for  the  sympathetic  induc- 
tion of  emotion.  The  explanation  given  of  the 
fact  that  the  instinctive  behaviour  of  one  animal 
directly  excites  similar  behaviour  on  the  part  of 
his  fellows,  consists  in  the  assumption  that  among 
gregarious  animals  each  of  the  principal  instincts 
has  a  special  perceptual  inlet  that  is  adapted  to 
receive  the  sense-impressions  made  by  the  ex- 
pressions of  the  same  instinct  in  other  animals 
of  the  same  species  :  thus,  for  example,  the  fear 
instinct,  inter  alia,  has  a  special  perceptual  inlet 
that  renders  it  excitable  by  the  sound  of  the  cry 
of  fear ;  the  instinct  of  pugnacity  is  similarly 
excited  through  a  perceptual  inlet  by  the  sound 
of  the  roar  of  anger,  and  so  on.  Whatever  the 
value  of  this  assumption  it  is  clear  that  the 
emotional  excitement  of  an  aggregation  of  in- 
dividuals reacts  with  cumulative  intensity  upon 
each  member  of  it.  It  is  sufficient,  however,  to 
say  that  there  exists  in  the  human  species  a 
fundamental  impulse  of  gregarious  attraction, 
analogous  in  the  physical  world  to  the  law  of 
gravitation,  which  tends  to  produce  aggregations 
of  men  and  to  intensify  their  suggestibility  in 
relation  to  sheer  weight  of  numbers  and  proximity. 
If  we  accept  the  view  that  the  subjective  mind 
is  liable  to  be  directly  influenced  by  other  sub- 
jective minds  with  which  it  is  en  rapport,  the 
hypothesis  of  special  perceptual  inlets,  designed 
for  each  instinct  to  receive  only  the  corresponding 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  108 

sense-impressions  derived  from  the  efferent  action 
of  the  same  instinct  in  other  individuals,  becomes 
of  secondary  importance.  Any  cause  which  simul- 
taneously provokes  emotional  excitement  in  a  large 
body  of  people  tends  to  bring  them  into  rapport, 
thence  onwards  a  community  of  feeling  has  been 
established,  like  elements  coalesce,  foreign  elements 
are  dissipated  or  repulsed,  the  mass  will  think, 
feel  and  act  as  a  collective  whole,  the  impulse  or 
emotion  of  one  will  re-echo  in  all,  as  when  a 
certain  note  is  struck  all  the  chords  in  the 
instrument  which  are  attuned  to  it  are  set 
vibrating.  A  skilful  orator  who  can  once  succeed 
in  evoking  strong  emotional  response  in  his 
audience  is  in  the  most  favourable  position  for 
transmitting  any  proposition  by  suggestion  ;  any 
assertion  is  then  likely  to  be  received  unquestion- 
ingly  and  with  the  strength  of  conviction,  any 
suggestion  to  be  resolved  into  action. 

An  orator  of  the  ecstatic  and  fanatical  type 
will  endeavour,  by  working  himself  into  a 
frenzy  of  excitement,  to  throw  himself  into  the 
subjective  state,  for  thus  he  is  in  closest  rapport 
with  his  environment.  This  is  the  secret  of  the 
power  of  demagogues  and  of  other  worthless  and 
otherwise  insignificant  individuals.  It  is  said 
to  have  been  the  method  of  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  characters  of  modern  times — Ras- 
putin, or  Grigori  Yefimovitsch,  a  gross,  illiterate, 
debauched  and  fanatical  Siberian  monk,  who, 
up  to  the  time  of  his  murder  in  December  1916, 
had  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  powerful 


104  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

man  in  Russia.  According  to  the  few  reliable 
accounts  of  him  that  are  obtainable,  the  influence 
of  this  man's  personality  and  the  religio-erotic 
frenzies  which  characterized  his  ministrations 
were  such  that  women  of  the  highest  culture  and 
refinement  would  prostitute  themselves,  body 
and  soul,  in  obedience  to  his  suggestion,  ministers 
and  high  state  officials  habitually  sought  his 
favours,  and  among  the  masses  he  was  a  constant 
object  of  idolatry. 

Does  any  one  suppose  that  if  Mark  Antony 
could  have  circulated  his  famous  speech  on  the 
death  of  Caesar  in  pamphlet  form,  or  could  have 
published  his  appeal  in  a  leading  daily,  he  would 
have  chosen  that  method  ?  Or  if  he  had  done 
so  that  he  would  have  attained  as  striking  a 
result  as  by  the  fire  of  his  oratory  ?  This  brings 
us  to  a  consideration  of  the  difference  between 
written  propaganda  and  that  which  is  spoken 
or  acted  and  accompanied  by  emotional  sugges- 
tion. 

The  mere  written  or  printed  proposition  is 
assimilated  by  autosuggestion ;  its  aim  is  to 
awaken  what  is  already  in  the  reader's  mind, 
whether  of  fear  or  courage,  love  or  hate,  admiration 
or  contempt,  to  make  articulate  what  before  was 
vague  and  undefined,  to  associate  these  qualities 
in  the  reader  to  certain  objects  or  symbols,  in 
this  way  gradually  building  up  sentiments  and 
ideals.  But  cosmic  suggestion  or  psychic  en- 
vironment is  a  vital  influence,  capable  of  over- 
coming resistance  and  of  kindling  human  passions 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  105 

and  emotions.  It  is  often  asserted  that  the  Press 
accurately  voices  pubUc  opinion ;  this,  however, 
as  all  pressmen  know,  is  not  true.  The  Press  to  a 
certain  extent  approximates  certain  sections  of 
public  opinion,  or  more  accurately  adapts  itself 
to  it,  but  all  it  can  truthfully  be  said  to  represent 
is  the  newspaper  proprietors,  and  in  a  lesser 
degree  the  host  of  hired  scribblers  whom  they 
employ.  At  the  same  time  it  would  be  foolish  to 
minimize  the  enormous  and  ever-increasing  power 
it  wields — a  power  that  increases  pari  passu 
with  the  growing  power  of  the  masses  and  corre- 
sponding decrease  in  responsibility  and  intelli- 
gence of  their  chosen  rulers.  The  Press,  no  longer 
confining  itself  to  its  legitimate  role  of  conveying 
news,  tends  more  and  more  to  present  the  appear- 
ance of  organized  concerns  for  the  dissemination 
of  lies  and  counter-lies,  and  the  propagation  of 
hate,  envy  and  humbug,  each  organ  shouting  its 
particular  claptrap  and  catchwords  with  the 
frenzied  persistence  of  bucket-shop  touts.  Mr. 
Hilaire  Belloc  draws  a  subtle  distinction  between 
what  he  calls  the  "  Capitalist  Press,"  or  those 
organs  run  for  mere  profit,  and  a  "  Free  Press," 
or  organs  produced  for  the  sole  motive  of  in- 
fluencing public  opinion,  i.e.  for  propaganda.* 
The  former  is  vicious  and  untruthful,  the  latter  is 
virtuous  and  bears  witness  to  the  truth.  Having 
once  consigned  all  the  existing  press  organs  to 
their  respective  categories  as  "  Capitalist "  or 
"Free"  by  this  simple  test  of  motive,  the  vice 

*  "  The  Free  Press,"  1918. 


106  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

of  the  one  and  the  virtue  of  the  other  are  at 
once  apparent :  anything  meriting  the  label 
"  Capitalist "  is  naturally  bad  and  depraved, 
while  sufficient  guarantee  of  the  integrity  and 
virtue  of  the  "  Free  "  Press  may  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Belloc  himself  writes  for  the 
"  Free  "  Press,  and  testifies  to  the  fact  that  it 
does  not  pay.  While  so  arbitrary  a  distinction 
must  necessarily  appear  captious  and  fanciful, 
and  absurd  when  applied  as  a  test  of  veracity, 
we  may  yet  perhaps  roughly  distinguish  between 
those  organs  which  are  designed  primarily  to 
sell  at  a  maximum  profit  and  those  which  are 
sold  primarily  to  propagate  a  "  cause,"  even  at  a 
loss.  At  the  risk  of  appearing  cynical,  we  might 
say  that  the  chief  difference  between  the  two 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  former  is  designed  to 
pander  to  the  foibles  of  its  readers,  and  the  latter 
is  the  expression  of  the  fanaticism  of  its  writers. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  such  a  hard  and  fast  distinc- 
tion can  seldom  be  made  between  the  two,  since 
both  motives  are  usually  operative  in  the  same 
enterprise,  though  in  varying  proportions.  But 
surely  it  is  absurd  to  claim  for  either  an  inherent 
predisposition  to  speak  the  truth.  The  failure 
of  the  "  Free  Press  " — ^the  carping  rags  that  im- 
agine themselves  independent — would  appear  to 
lie  in  the  very  fact  of  their  eagerness  to  convert. 
The  natural  resentment  of  the  man  who  discerns 
an  attempt  to  convert  him  was  well  expressed 
in  a  witty  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons  during 
a  debate   on   the   relations   between   Press   and 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  107 

Government.  What  had  always  attracted  him 
most  about  Lord  NorthcUffe,  said  the  Hon. 
Member  for  Stockport,  was  that  he  had  never 
pretended  to  be  a  philanthropist.  He  was  not 
one  of  those  pestilent  people  who  pretended  to 
run  newspapers  in  order  that  they  might  leave  the 
world  a  little  better  than  they  found  it.* 

Tradition  and  the  building  up  of  sentiments  and 
ideals,  together  with  the  symbols  by  which  they 
are  known  and  familiarized,  are  very  largely, 
if  not  exclusively,  the  work  of  the  written  word. 
But  Literature  and  the  Press  are  themselves 
governed  by  their  past  history,  and  by  traditions 
and  conventions  that  have  been  gradually  built 
up  from  a  few  fundamental  ideas,  however 
diversified  they  may  eventually  have  become; 
and  these  ideas,  in  their  turn,  owe  their  origin  to 
the  passions  and  sentiments  of  the  race  as  a 
whole.  Even  the  work  of  genius  has  its  roots 
in  the  ideas  of  the  past.  "  Are  we  sure,"  asks  a 
French  author,  "  that  the  ideas  which  flow  from 
great  men  of  genius  are  exclusively  their  own 
work  ?  No  doubt  they  always  spring  from  the 
wealth  of  individual  souls,  but  the  myriads  of 
grains  of  dust  which  form  the  alluvion  where 
those  ideas  have  generated  are  surely  formed  by 
the  soul  of  the  nation  ?  "  "f 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  a  fundamental  principle 
that  the  strongest  suggestion  must  prevail ;  mass 
tells  against  single  individuals,  overwhelming 
quantity  against  quality,  when  the  strength  of 

*  Mr.  Hughes,  March  11,  1918.  f  Gustave  Le  Bon. 


108  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

either  is  measured  against  the  resistance  to  be 
overcome.  Cosmic  suggestion  is  conditioned  by 
various  circumstances  which  affect  its  influence. 
It  is  a  commonplace  to  say  that  hke  attracts 
like  ;  this  fact  is  but  another  attribute  of  gre- 
garious attraction  and  tends  towards  establishing 
the  homogeneity  of  aggregations,  and  slightly 
modifies  the  attraction  of  mere  numbers.  It 
results  in  a  diversity  of  centres  of  attraction ; 
but  these  centres  of  attraction  are  apt  to  converge 
and  coalesce  if  for  any  reason  they  are  simul- 
taneously affected  by  related  or  identical  senti- 
ments. Frequency  and  persistency,  as  is  well 
known,  also  modify  the  force  of  mere  numbers. 
The  loudest  and  most  frequently  repeated  affir- 
mations carry  the  most  weight.  In  this  way 
small  bands  of  fanatics,  by  dint  of  reiteration, 
have  had  their  catchwords  and  shibboleths 
accepted  unquestioningly. 

So  far  from  weakening  the  respect  and  awe 
with  which  mere  symbols  are  regarded,  their  very 
obscurity  and  lack  of  meaning  will  ensure  their 
position  and  inviolability.  The  vogue  for 
mysticism  in  poetry,  art,  and  religion  reflects 
this  love  of  symbolism.  Men,  from  the  very 
indolence  of  their  minds,  love  to  set  up  symbols 
and  to  worship  them,  without  verifying  the  truths 
they  are  supposed  to  represent,  for  symbols  are 
easily  acquired  and  easily  perceived,  and  dispense 
with  the  arduous  necessity  of  probing  reality 
and  the  mental  discipline  without  which  truth 
cannot  be  reached. 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  109 

The  power  of  words  and  symbols  is  entirely 
independent  of  their  real  meaning.  As  we  have 
already  shown,  the  most  meaningless  and  the 
most  obscure  phrases  are,  as  a  rule,  for  that  very 
reason  the  most  potent.  Such  terms  as  liberty, 
equality,  democracy,  socialism,  etc.,  whose  mean- 
ings are  so  vague  that  whole  libraries  do  not 
exhaust  their  possible  interpretations,  are 
solemnly  uttered  as  though  they  were  magic 
spells,  at  the  very  sound  of  which  all  problems 
disappear.  Symbolism  and  mysticism  form  the 
fanatic's  charter  of  licence.  They  revel  in  the 
dim  obscurity  which  intensifies  the  false  bright- 
ness of  their  symbols.  They  welcome  the  emo- 
tional domination  of  their  minds  that  they  may 
abandon  themselves  to  passions  and  feelings, 
and  by  developing  their  subjective  *  powers, 
infect  the  masses  with  their  madness.  A  true 
metaphysics,  it  is  well  to  remember,  is  the  very 
antithesis  of  mysticism,  for  it  aims  at  the  elimina- 
tion of  symbols  ;  its  method  is  to  co-ordinate  and 
synthesize,  and  by  means  of  the  systematization 
of  materia  to  penetrate  through  and  beyond, 
towards  a  realization  of  direction  and  of  value ; 
it  tests  the  highest  powers  of  the  intellect. 

Bergson  defines  metaphysics  as  the  science 
which  claims  to  dispense  with  symbols.  A  sym- 
bol, at  best,  can  only  stand  for  an  aspect  of  the 
truth,  a  mere  sign-post  pointing  somewhere  in 
its  direction.  Symbols  have  no  part  in  intuition, 
yet  linguistic  symbols  are  necessary  for  conveying 

*  I.e.  powers  of  the  subjective  mind. 


110  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

thoughts  and  ideals  to  others.  The  generahty  of 
men,  however,  can  only  think  in  symbols,  and 
can  only  be  influenced  by  them  ;  lies  and  illu- 
sions are  propagated  and  perpetrated  in  the  form 
of  images,  yet  images  perform  necessary  service 
in  establishing  goals  of  endeavour  for  securing 
co-ordination  and  moral  direction.  Symbololatry 
is  a  common  trait  of  humanity,  and  few  men 
analyse  the  symbols  they  w^orship ;  for  this 
reason  it  is  necessary  that  the  ideals  and  symbols 
of  "  the  good  "  should  be  forged  by  the  few  and 
the  wise,  not  by  the  force  of  the  greatest  number, 
that  is,  they  must  come  from  above,  not  from 
below.  Thus  we  see  that  in  past  history  religion 
has  performed  a  necessary  function,  and  that  in 
spite  of  the  gross  unreality  of  its  symbols  it 
constituted  the  only  instrument  of  consolidation 
at  the  disposal  of  primitive  man.  Without  this 
force,  born  of  man's  fear  of  the  unknown,  his 
ignorance  and  false  appreciation  of  causality, 
together  with  a  vague  realization  of  his  depen- 
dence on  his  fellows,  the  imposition  of  rough  and 
arbitrary  values,  which  first  constituted  moral 
conduct,  would  have  been  impossible.  For  this 
reason  any  advancement  and  progress  in  the 
direction  of  civilization  would  have  been  im- 
possible without  religion.  The  conservative 
spirit  of  religion  is  seen  to  have  been  the  means 
of  securing  the  consolidation  and  stability  of 
society  which  was  necessary  for  the  well-being 
and  strength  of  every  community ;  without  this 
it  could  not  have  survived.     As  long  as  men  are 


VALUER  AND  VALUATION  111 

dazzled  by  symbols  and  governed  by  emotions, 
and  there  is  at  present  no  sign  of  change  in  this 
respect,  a  strong  hierarchy  capable  of  evoking 
respect  for  its  values  alone  can  save  a  state  from 
disintegration,  anarchy  and  social  decay ;  but 
only  if  that  hierarchy  is  composed  of  the  highest, 
noblest  and  most  enlightened  in  the  race  can  those 
values  be  the  best  possible,  and  can  they  continue 
to  improve  pari  passu  with  advancing  civilization. 
The  alternative,  the  increasing  despotism  of  the 
many,  articulating  through  the  voice  of  dema- 
gogues, resulting  in  the  gradual  extermination  of 
the  few  and  the  highest,  and  in  the  imposition  of 
values  growing  ever  more  false,  points  the  way  to 
decadence  and  barbarism.  Evolution  implies 
decline  no  less  than  advancement,  and  the 
"  survival  of  the  fittest "  in  the  former  case 
means  the  survival  of  the  lowest  and  the  most 
degraded. 

A  child's  moral  conduct,  like  primitive  man's, 
is  at  first  absolutely  dependent  upon  his  environ- 
ment, but  with  the  development  of  self-concious- 
ness  and  with  the  growth  of  an  ideal  of  self,  his 
values  and  his  conduct  become  progressively 
freer  from  his  present  environment,  and  in  a 
greater  degree  determined  by  the  direction  of 
past  habits  and  the  force  of  early  impressions.* 
"  There  is  hardly  anything,"  said  Mill,  "  so 
absurd  or  so  mischievous  that  it  may  not  by  the 

•  Thus  Mr.  Jevons  says :  "  The  consciousness  of  the  child  reproduces 
the  consciousness  of  the  community  to  which  he  belongs." — "  The  Idea 
of  God  in  Early  Religions." 


112  CONSCIENCE  AND  FANATICISM 

use  of  external  sanctions  and  the  force  of  early- 
impressions  be  made  to  act  on  the  human  mind 
with  all  the  authority  of  conscience." 

The  attainment  of  character  through  the  de- 
velopment of  an  ideal  of  self  and  the  systematiza- 
tion  of  habits  and  motives  is  a  slow  and  gradual 
process,  and  only  rarely  is  complete  independence 
of  judgment  attained,  which  alone  renders  the 
highest  form  of  moral  conduct  possible,  when  all 
conduct  is  determined  by  will  with  regard  to  the 
realization  of  ends. 


PRINTED  AT  THE  COMPLETE  PRESS 

WEST     NORWOOD 

LONDON,  S.E. 


i^i")! 


